Question about network's tolerants of programmng pre-emptions

[azumanga]

There were even a couple of Friday nights during an election year where we pre-empted CBS prime time for a locally run movie. The sole reason: To catch up on local spot inventory.

I believe some stations continue to do this even today. And no doubt we'll probably see quite a few place a syndicated movie in prime time once the elections are over.

[nomadcowatbk]

There were even a couple of Friday nights during an election year where we pre-empted CBS prime time for a locally run movie. The sole reason: To catch up on local spot inventory.

I believe some stations continue to do this even today. And no doubt we'll probably see quite a few place a syndicated movie in prime time once the elections are over.

This common right before or after sweeps periods. No one notices since they usually schedule them during reruns

[firepoint525]

In the 70's and 80's NBC was TOO tolerant of daytime pre-emptions.They let stations like WMC in Memphis get away with pre-empting a big part of the morning schedule. WMC started out slowly in the 70's and the more they saw that NBC wouldn't stop them the worse they got until in the 80's and early 90's they were pre-emptng all of NBC's game shows except for Wheel of Fortune and possibly one other show to fill out the hour.
NBC should have put pressure on stations to keep the daytime lineup and penalized them when they didn't. But because they caved in and let stations get away with it all they have now is Days of our Lives and an extended Today show.
NBC also was too tolerant of pre-emptions and delays in late night, especially with David Letterman. They didn't let very many stations get away with pre-empting or delaying Johnny Carson, and they shouldn't have allowed it with Letterman either.

If you lived in northwest Tennessee back in the day, you would have (apparently) needed both channel 5 in Memphis and channel 6 in Paducah on your cable system to compensate for all the pre-empts on both stations!  Or two sets of "rabbit ears" (one pointed each way) if you did not have cable at the time.  Channel 6 was especially bad about pre-empting for UK basketball (even bumping Cosby at least once!), and they delayed Saturday Night Live by an hour (when they actually carried it!) for the better part of 20 years!  If you didn't have cable, you would probably have had to live in the Obion River bottoms to see both stations!  That would be about the ONLY advantage that I could see for living in the Obion River bottoms! 

[anotherguy]

I lived South of Dyersburg and had an antenna with a rotor to get WPSD, KFVS in Cape Girardeau, MO, and KAIT in Jonesboro, AR,  along with the usual Memphis and Jackson, TN stations, so I got most shows I wanted to see from somewhere. I could also get all of them except KAIT on Cable One in Dyersburg at either my grandmother's or brother's house.

WPSD seemed to be worse about pre-emptions and delays in prime time and with SNL while WMC was worse in the daytime, Letterman, and Saturday sports.

[firepoint525]

For some inexplicable reason, channel 6 used to sign off right after Letterman, rather than stay on for the extra half-hour for Later with Bob Costas.  This, along with their SNL delays, actually had them staying on the air longer on Saturday nights than the rest of the week!

[nomadcowatbk]

For some inexplicable reason, channel 6 used to sign off right after Letterman, rather than stay on for the extra half-hour for Later with Bob Costas.  This, along with their SNL delays, actually had them staying on the air longer on Saturday nights than the rest of the week!

What did they run instead of SNL?

[Scoobyfan1]

This is an interesting thread, although there is one thing that stands out in my mind.

I can understand networks wanting stations carrying their primetime shows during the actual TV season(I.E. September-May or June), but I would imagine most stations wouldn't mind a lot of pre-emptions during primetime during the TV "Off-Season" so to speak(the summer months, June, July, August and the first few weeks of September).

During the summer months most people are on vacation or at concerts or whatever, so I guess pre-emptions would be tolerated more then, as opposed to the other 8 or 9 months of the year.

As for pre-emptions during the daytime, there is something interesting that stands out in my mind about game shows of the past, and soaps and other old school daytime programming.

I wonder if had the technology for digital subchannels(MeTV, Antenna TV, etc.) existed in the 60s, 70s and 80s(or something similar to digital subchannels) that's where most of the daytime shows stations pre-empted would have ended up.

Take my area for example(Seattle): KIRO 7 currently has an RTV subchannel, KING 5 has one I believe, and KOMO 4 has a ThisTV subchannel. If something along the lines of the digital subchannel technology had existed at that time, I could see KING and KIRO's subchannels airing a ton of NBC and CBS game shows, and whatever other daytime programs the stations would have pre-empted.

I apologize by the way in advance if i've brought this idea up before, but I just think it's something interesting to think about.

[cowboybud]

There were even a couple of Friday nights during an election year where we pre-empted CBS prime time for a locally run movie. The sole reason: To catch up on local spot inventory.

I believe some stations continue to do this even today. And no doubt we'll probably see quite a few place a syndicated movie in prime time once the elections are over.

This common right before or after sweeps periods. No one notices since they usually schedule them during reruns

Nowadays they often do this on Saturdays, when no one's watching anyway, and the only non-rerun show being pre-empted would be "48 Hours Mystery".

[firepoint525]

For some inexplicable reason, channel 6 used to sign off right after Letterman, rather than stay on for the extra half-hour for Later with Bob Costas.  This, along with their SNL delays, actually had them staying on the air longer on Saturday nights than the rest of the week!

What did they run instead of SNL?

They ran it; they just delayed it by an hour for the better part of 20 years, usually running This Week in Country Music (the Crook and Chase show) and some sitcom rerun during the hour delay.

[spencerkarter85]

What about Mormon-owned KSL-TV turned down SNL (ended up on KUCW) in Utah? Before they added Today Show's 4th Hour repeat at 2:05am/1:05am Central/Mountain last Fall, what about Hearst stations (KCRA, KSBW, WBAL, and WYFF) let them get away for not airing KLG and Hoda?