Example of why 2 affiliates are necessary

[Link]

Last night ABC's flagship station WABC 7, yes WABC pre-empted the Dynasty Movie: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure for a New York Giants game also being shown on ESPN. ABC promoted the heck out of this movie special. I remember the show well but was sick of ABC's constant promos. Then what does their top network owned affiliate do??? Pre-empts the show until 11:35pm (or later).

This is why viewers in the area need a secondary choice--WPVI 6 in Philadelphia (also ABC owned) show the Dynasty movie.

This same thing happened in Chicago in November when Desperate Housewives was pre-empted until after midnight when WLS ABC 7 showed a Chicago Bears ESPN game as well. It would have been nice to have a second ABC choice in that case as well.

[SamC]

This happens in smaller markets, where the stations are not O&O by the network, much more frequently.

The simple solution, fair to everyone and legal, is what I call "blackout protection". When a local station pre-empts the network for whatever, AUTOMATICALLY the DBS provider should unscramble an alternative feed, AT NO CHARGE.

[thebigjp]

like the last poster said, this kind of stuff happens MUCH more in smaller markets. and every time there is a Billy Graham special on TV, you can look for the ad in the TV Guide that says: "BILLY GRAHAM: WHATEVER THIS MONTH's TOPIC IS"

8:00-9:00p.m. 6, 8M, 9, 10, 31

yes people that is ONE STATION FOR EVERY MARKET, and most of these stations do not make up for the show missed (Ch. 9 will show the show at 3:30a.m. or something but the others, no make ups!)

side note: nothing against the specials of Billy Graham., these specials were used for illustrative purposes of small market pre-empting.

[SamC]

In my market we get, with great regularity:

Billy Graham (nothing against Dr. Graham, but...)
WVU Big Least basketball (pre-empts at least one night of ABC primetime per week all winter).
UK & SEC basketball (two seperate packages)
Marshall basketball
Ohio U basketball
Marshall football
SEC football
Big Least football (preempting whatever ABC has a 12 noon on Saturdays, often a MUCH better football game).
New York Jets pre-season football
Pittsburgh pre-season football

We even lost the Army-Navy game to a TAPED high school game between two non-local teams.

The NBC station tape delays whatever it pre-empts to either 2 AM or runs it on Sunday afternoons if NBC has no sports that week. The rest of the network just blow off the shows entirely.

It is really irritating. The WVU Big Least basketball is the worst. I see the ratings in this market and these are TINY. But selling sports ads is easy and the station knows this. It is impossible to follow a primetime series on ABC because you never know when it will be on.

[Spruceman]

It's time for the networks to tell these Podunk affiliates that when carriage contracts come up for renewal that they will no longer have exclusive distribution rights within the DMA and let D* & E* carry the networks' flagship stations. At that point, the local outlets will have to start competing for viewers of the respective networks.

Same goes for stations that don't put up repeaters / translators to ensure full signal coverage within the DMA as well as anything within the predicted grade-B contour outside the DMA if they are unwilling to grant waivers.

It's in the networks' interests to get as many viewers as possible; and they shouldn't allow some shoddy affiliate get in the way prempting the their primetime fare by showing a videotape of some fourth grade morning recess kickball game.

[sikma]

If we want to buy all 210 markets, LET US!!!