How CBS And The NFL Teamed Up To Screw WoF And J!

[Bob Juch]

In January, CBS acquired the rights to air NFL Network's Thursday Night Football through the first half of the season. That slate turned out to be some of the shittiest professional football ever put on television, and it was a financial catastrophe for the Tiffany network. But prime-time national NFL broadcasts hurt the bottom line elsewhere, too: at Sony Pictures Entertainment, where executives were blindsided just a week before the NFL season kicked off with the news that TNF would be pre-empting two of Sony's most lucrative properties, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!, on the dozens of CBS affiliates that air those two game shows.

Here's the epistolary story of how CBS tricked Sony into thinking their game shows wouldn't be affected by the NFL, and how Sony even worked with the league to develop a special Jeopardy! category recognizing what turned out to be a ratings-killer.

http://deadspin.com/how-cbs-and-the-nfl ... 1670315974

[ghostjmf]

Here in Boston, we have Patriots "All Access" almost all of the time. Well, Fridays. And Thursdays during the debacle you cite. The displaced programs air in the overnight hours. Which I'm sure doesn't help their ratings. J! is the one I follow, but I admit I don't generally program to record the displaced Friday show unless its a tournament.

[jarnon]

With every major network affiliate having DT2 & DT3 channels, preemption should be a thing of the past. This is ridiculous. And the way they screwed Sony is nearly criminal. Did Kim Jong-un put them up to it?

CBS has messed up Sunday evening programming for decades, and now they've done the same on Thursdays.

[Kazoo65]

I also get WoF and J! on a CBS station. I was really glad when "Thursday Night Football" was over. I don't like missing J!. Now I want CBS to stop showing the NCAA basketball tourney every March. That causes me to miss several episodes of J!.

[Jeemie]

Um...am I supposed to feel sorry for Sony executives who apparently don't know when their shows air in the various markets?

The Thursday games start at 8:30 and run about 3.5 hours. The schedule was out weeks and weeks in advance.

Sony really needed the NFL to tell them this schedule, and which markets might be affected?

That said- Friedman's idea for a solution seemed intriguing...would have to work out the financials on such a deal if the technology could be made to work.

[BackInTex]

Did Michael Davies go to work for the NFL? I see some of the WWTBAM magic. Take a highly successful weekly show and then put it on as many nights as possible, flooding the market and choking the fan with too much of the good thing. And have every show be a celebrity show.

[Jeemie]

Did Michael Davies go to work for the NFL? I see some of the WWTBAM magic. Take a highly successful weekly show and then put it on as many nights as possible, flooding the market and choking the fan with too much of the good thing. And have every show be a celebrity show.

Yes but if you actually read the article about CBS' profits/losses from this series, you will find that in all likelihood, even though CBS probably lost money on the games themselves, they may have set themselves up for strong future earnings because of the promotion of new shows that have taken off, both in the games themselves, and on their Monday nights because The Big Bang Theory was temporarily shifted there.

CBS used their behemoth wisely...ABC did not.

And trust me...the NFL will not die from oversaturation any time soon.

[littlebeast13]

Hearing of Jeopardy! airing in the evening is about as foreign a concept to me as the idea of local newscasts starting at 11 PM (The famous phrase "Film at 11" always bothered me). J! has been an mid afternoon staple in the STL for as long as the Trebek version has been on the air...

lb13

[Bob Juch]

Here J! follows BAM which starts at 3 PM. WoF is at 6:30 following the news. All are on KGUN, the ABC affiliate.

I wonder in how many markets J! and WoF are not together?

[MarleysGh0st]

Hearing of Jeopardy! airing in the evening is about as foreign a concept to me as the idea of local newscasts starting at 11 PM (The famous phrase "Film at 11" always bothered me). J! has been an mid afternoon staple in the STL for as long as the Trebek version has been on the air...

So what shows air in the evening before primetime, out there? One of those celebrity "news" shows, I'm guessing...

J! still holds on to its desirable 7:30 pm time slot, out here. Back in the good ol' days, WWTBAM used to precede it at 7 (albeit on a different channel).

[Bob78164]

Hearing of Jeopardy! airing in the evening is about as foreign a concept to me as the idea of local newscasts starting at 11 PM (The famous phrase "Film at 11" always bothered me). J! has been an mid afternoon staple in the STL for as long as the Trebek version has been on the air...

So what shows air in the evening before primetime, out there? One of those celebrity "news" shows, I'm guessing...

J! still holds on to its desirable 7:30 pm time slot, out here. Back in the good ol' days, WWTBAM used to precede it at 7 (albeit on a different channel).

Here in Los Angeles, for as long as I can remember it's been Jeopardy! at 7:00 p.m. (on the ABC affiliate) followed by Wheel of Fortune at 7:30. --Bob

[ten96lt]

Wheel was always 6:30PM in Chicago. Only time I've seen it pre-empted is Saturdays if college football ran long or during breaking news. Jeopardy was always 3:30PM as a lead in to the local news, then went to 2:30PM for a couple years as a lead in to Katie. Once that got canceled, they put it back to 3:30 (which I prefer).

[Kazoo65]

J! has been on at 7:30 around here for as long as it's been on. When it first started way back in 1984 it was on an ABC station (the same one I see BAM on now) and it switched to its' current station in the late 80's when the ABC station started showing Entertainment Tonight.

[littlebeast13]

Hearing of Jeopardy! airing in the evening is about as foreign a concept to me as the idea of local newscasts starting at 11 PM (The famous phrase "Film at 11" always bothered me). J! has been an mid afternoon staple in the STL for as long as the Trebek version has been on the air...

So what shows air in the evening before primetime, out there? One of those celebrity "news" shows, I'm guessing...

J! still holds on to its desirable 7:30 pm time slot, out here. Back in the good ol' days, WWTBAM used to precede it at 7 (albeit on a different channel).

The NBC affiliate here has aired both J! and Wheel since their inception. Wheel has been the 6:30 pre-primetime show for its entire run, while J! held down the 3:30 slot from its start until the first season after Oprah retired (She was locked into the 4:00 hour)... then it moved to 4:30 to lead in to the 5:00 news....

We tend to do things differently here...

lb13

[TheConfessor]

The NBC affiliate here has aired both J! and Wheel since their inception. Wheel has been the 6:30 pre-primetime show for its entire run, while J! held down the 3:30 slot from its start until the first season after Oprah retired (She was locked into the 4:00 hour)... then it moved to 4:30 to lead in to the 5:00 news....

We tend to do things differently here...

lb13

You're identically as different as Austin. J! at 4:30, WOF at 6:30, both on the NBC station.