Treehouse of Horror XV on Global - Why the Delay?

Anyone know why this episode (and much of the evening's programming) was delayed by 39 minutes on Global (at least in Ontario) last Sunday?

Marvin Kaplansky

Somebody claiming to be [email] (Marvin Kaplansky) wrote in news:cmt5er$lq2$[email]:

They must be getting their programming from the New York Fox feed. In New York, everything was 39 minutes late because the New York Giants' football game ran that late.

they had to excise the kang and kodo lip-synching footage.

"Ted S." wrote in message news:[email]...

Surely the US have dedicated sports channels to avoid this?

Or why don't they allow enough time to show the games in the first place?

Somebody claiming to be Paul Hyett wrote in news:ZjUgM0Bg1wkBFw$[email]:

We have dedicated sports channels, but the NFL have always wanted as many games on broadcast (ie. free-to-air) TV as possible. There's a Sunday night game on ESPN, but the NFL rules mandate that the local markets of the two teams playing in that game have to simulcast it on a local broadcast channel.

The networks *could* schedule their Sunday programming so that football ends at 7:30PM, with the rest of the shows starting after football, but a problem with this is that the networks don't have a late game on Sunday every week. What happens is this: There are two "conferences" in the NFL, with one network (CBS) showing the games involving teams from one conference, and Fox showing the games from the other conference. Most games start at 1:00 local time (noon in the Central Time Zone), with the various games being broadcast regionally. Usually one game a week that the league thinks is going to be a "big" game that the fans across the country will want to see is scheduled for 4:15 ET*. (There are also games in the Mountain and Pacific time zones which always have a post-4PM (ET) kickoff time.) However, only one network a week gets a double-header allowing them to show two games on Sunday. So, it's only half of the Sundays during the year that each network will have nationwide programming going past 7PM. This past Sunday, that was CBS.

* Actually, for the network that doesn't have the double-header, the late games begin not at 4:15 ET, but 4:05 ET.

Normally, the New York Giants' game would have been an early kickoff, but there's a slight hitch: there are two teams in New York, so every week one of them has to get a late kickoff (unless one of them is on Sunday Night or Monday Night Football). That happened to be the Giants this week. Since CBS had the double-header this past Sunday, the Giants game was only aired in New York and Chicago (the other team playing). Looking at my schedule, other markets that had a late game on Fox this past week would be: Seattle vs. San Francisco, and New Orleans at San Diego. The rest of the Fox affiliates would have shown some sort of local programming between 4PM and 7PM ET. And of course, the pre-emption of the Simpsons was a non- issue in Seattle, San Francisco, and San Diego, since the games there began at 1PM local time and the Fox schedule begins at 7PM in the Pacific time zone.

(The NFL broadcast rules are even more complicated than that. The TV market of the home team, by rule, doesn't have a game on the other network at the time the home team is playing. Since the NY Giants were at home last Sunday, viewers in New York didn't get a late game on CBS, even though CBS had a double-header nationally this past Sunday. And don't get me started on the blackout rules.)

Normally, if a game doesn't go into overtime, it will be finished in not much longer than three hours, so that programming in places like New York would only have been delayed about 10 minutes. (Many early games do finish before 4PM ET, but some do go on past 4:15 even without going into overtime.) I'm not certain why the Giants game ran as long as it did, although I know the Giants suffered a couple of injuries during the game that probably would have had to be treated on the field, leading to a delay in the game.

Having said all this, I would agree that it's not a bad idea for Fox to have a filler show that they could air from 7-7:30 during football season.

Ted S. wrote:

They do. It's called "King of the Hill". (Last year, it was Oliver Beene; the four years before that, it was Futurama.)

Normally, when NFL coverage runs long, Fox starts its Sunday lineup "already in progress"; however, last Sunday was the season premiere of most of the lineup, so Fox probably wanted to make sure the whole thing aired throughout the country. (If football coverage runs so long that a new episode is pre-empted in the east, it is replaced with a rerun in the west.)

(And you don't have to tell this San Francisco-area native about blackout rules - although the Raiders actually managed to sell a game out in October in time to lift the blackout, mainly because (a) the time limit was moved 24 hours because there was a holiday earlier in the week, and (b) it was rumored (correctly, as it turned out) to be Jerry Rice's last game as a Raider.)

-- Don

Because sports, at least here in North America, has the nasty habit of running overtime Something in the rules means they don't fit into an exact two or three hour span.

You should see it here in the spring, when the hockey finals are on. The CBC here in Canada kills most of its programming, shifts the news to fit the break in the game, and while they'll schedule some late night movies, chances are good that they won't start on time; many a times I've had to wait for the game to end, and sometimes I've missed movies because they put them on earlier than scheduled since the game wasn't played.

Michael

"Marvin Kaplansky" wrote in message news:cmt5er$lq2$[email]...

They were trying to do a live episode, but found it was a terrible strain on the......ah never mind.

Eenie Meenie Chili Beanie Marvin Kaplansky is about to speak:

They wanted to give potential viewers enough time to get far, far away from the TV? Thoughtful of them, I'd say.

** Captain Infinity