During the afternoon games, CBS and Fox may switch a market's game to a more competitive one, particularly when a contest becomes lopsided. For this to occur, one team must be ahead by at least 18 points in the second half.
That would certainly fit with the New England Patriots...which were ahead 52-0 at 6:17 PM when CBS pulled the plug nationally...
Original item below...
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Yes, we're here, sort of.
As noted, our updates will be less frequent for a couple days. But, we're running this one out there, while it's still fresh in our minds...
CBS Pulls National Coverage: We didn't think the networks had flexibility to DO this for doubleheaders...
Your Tri-State Media Watcher was watching WKRC-TV 12/Cincinnati, where the New England Patriots were completely decimating the Tennessee Titans.
Notice we said "were".
The game is STILL going on as we type this. But...CBS pulled the plug on the national coverage of the game - with most of the second half still to be played!
We wonder if the NFL gave them the okay to do that. It wasn't a very competitive contest...but you're gonna have some ticked off Tennessee fans in some places if that game gets competitive again.
FOX 19 News at...1:20 AM???: Yes, it happened last night.
We were up, because of being something of an insomniac. The New York Yankees were playing the L.A. Angels of Anaheim, in a game that just would...not...end.
Mercifully, the Yankees DID end it, in the 13th inning.
As 12:30 AM turned to 12:45...then 1 AM...then 1:10...we wondered if WXIX-TV 19/Newport would even attempt to mount a late news on their main channel. (By the way: WXIX is airing the 10 PM news, at its regular time, on 19.2 (aka This TV Cincinnati) when WXIX airs a late game, and the 6 PM news tomorrow because of a 4 PM start for the ALCS. It's seen on Time Warner digital channel 994 and Insight digital channel 194.)
When the postgame ended around 1:20 AM, WXIX DID have a very short (presumably recorded) newscast of about 5 minutes duration...before jumping to "Talkshow with Spike Feresten".
We think WXIX officials saw the writing on the wall when the game went past 11:30 PM...as it appeared at least the radar loop used for the short newscast was from that time.
We can't blame WXIX (or for that matter, most FOX affiates in the eastern US) if they don't air the local news in these situations. (We hear from our friends and colleagues at Ohio Media Watch that WJW-TV 8/Cleveland went straight to Feresten after postgame.)
The fact is, at 1:20 AM, there's not much market for local news...except the sports fans, or insomniacs, like Your Tri-State Media Watcher.
Of course all of that was a moot point for the West Coast...as those areas were still able to do a semi-on time late local news...
2 comments:
WTTE in Columbus aired a full hour of news following the conclusion of the game.
WTTE always records its 10 PM newscast when it cannot air at 10 PM.
WTTE (FOX) and WSYX (ABC) share a newsroom and both had recorded newscasts on Saturday night -- ABC had NASCAR that ended after 11 PM.
They taped a 10 PM newscast from 10-11 PM which aired from 1:20-2:20 AM on FOX28.
They taped an 11 PM newscast from 11-11:35 PM which aired beginning at 11:30 PM on ABC6.
John,
Nice piece of information there. And you reminded us...WRGT-TV 45 and WKEF-TV 22/Dayton, along with WTTE-TV 28/Columbus and WSYX-TV 6/Columbus are ALL owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group. We'd assume the Dayton stations did the same thing...but, not exactly being IN Dayton to confirm it, we can't say for sure.
And, in general, we usually mostly leave Columbus and points north/east to our friends at Ohio Media Watch. But, it's good info because it can be applied easily to Dayton, too which we count as one of our big areas (most Dayton stations penetrate into the northern Cincinnati market over-the-air, so we mention them when we hear things from there).
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