Where’s ‘Chuck’? Preemptions on Channels 5 and 4
Monday night found Channels 5 and 4 battling to see which could preempt more network programming, and the winner was — it was a tie! Channel 4 bumped “The Big Bang Theory” and “How I Met Your Mother”; Channel 5 offed “Chuck.” Preempting the network to sell the slot and reap all the ad revenue is something stations do several times a year. It’s allowed in the network contract, and stations especially take advantage of it in an election year, when an excess of campaign ads have squeezed out regular advertisers. Monday night, “Big Bang” and “Mother” were repeats. “Chuck” was a new episode, but here’s the good news: Channel 5 will air it Sunday night at 11:30 p.m., so you can still catch it if you set the VCR. (A DVR told to pick up all new episodes should grab it automatically.)
I couldnt’ beleve when the Dierbergs then came on. Yes, Big Bang and HIMYM were repeats, but still better than watching “Everybody Cooks, but Nobody Watches”.
That’s an epic failure on the part of Channel 5. Chuck is my favorite show. Oh well, it gave me an opportunity to watch The Sara Connor Chronicles on another station.
The info about the replacement should have been in the printed Everyday
“TV Picks” along with a pointer to the day & time of the make-up
broadcast.
Also, why replace “Chuck” specifically? For weeks now, we’ve heard and
read references to “My Own Worst Enemy” being cancelled, and it was
broadcast that same night. Why replace a more popular show, “Chuck”,
when the same number of minutes was available later in the evening
during what is reported to be a less-popular program?
I know we’ve discussed this before, but it infuriates me that they are allowed to do this. I can’t believe the networks agree to let them preempt or delay a new episode of a network program especially during sweeps. Doesn’t that throw off the ratings? Channel 5 doesn’t even have the decency to show “Chuck” within a reasonable amount of time. A lot of people don’t pay close attention to scheduling, so they just assume that their show wasn’t on this week. And they certainly won’t bother to look for it on Sunday night at 11:30.
It’s stunts like this, along with weather maps and other unnecessary interruptions that have me to the point where I despise channel 5 and refuse to watch anything locally produced on that channel including the news. And channel 4 is close to achieving the same status.
The worse part of all this is that thanks to the relentless lobbying of the NAB, viewers don’t have the right to subscribe to out-of-market station feeds of network programming. Maybe if affiliates had some competition besides each other, they would care more about their viewers.
To show your frustration, just watch one of their nightly news broadcasts, make note of all the sponsors (especially local sponsors), then send an email to each one explaining why you’ll no longer be buying their product.
If enough people hit Channel 5 where it counts then they’ll knock this nonsense off.
To complicate the problem for “Chuck” is that its also Football season so Sunday night programming always runs late so even setting the DVR or VCR is going to be a challenge.
I guess I’m going to have to look for the NBC online stream.
Shame on you Channel 5.
“To complicate the problem for “Chuck” is that its also Football season so Sunday night programming always runs late so even setting the DVR or VCR is going to be a challenge.”
Ugh. So now I have no idea when Chuck will be on??? Guess I will just have to pull a late nighter for that one.
I agree that they could have moved Heroes back and had Chuck at 8 pm. Or what about Friday evening? Sunday at 11:30? That barely gives me enough time to watch it before the next episode.
I agree that the preemption was ridiculous. I rewound my DVR to 7:00 and Channel 5 didn’t even scroll across the screen when the show would be on. I’ll set my DVR for Sunday night, but also for the following show because undoubtedly the football game will run long.
One. The networks have zero control on local stations. Period. Local stations are FCC licensed, networks are not.
Another station could have picked up the program pre-empted, 11, 24, 46, etc. Maybe Ms. Pennington needs to be asking NBC why it didn’t try to clear the show on another station.
NBC’s recourse is if they don’t like Channel 5, they can negotiate to move to another channel when the contract is up.
I don’t blame 5. If they can make more money pre-empting, they should do so. They’re not into the charity business because the viewer wants it.
Sorry you missed your program, but Channel 5 is in business to make money.
@ Peter Zimmerman: The announcement was voice-over only at the very beginning of the hour. The minute I heard it I turned the channel.
Really dumb, KSDK. That’s no way to hang on to viewers.