# Television Seems to Know When the War Will Begin **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 14, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-seems-to-know-when-the-war-will-begin/161379 "2003-03-14T16:45:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-seems-to-know-when-the-war-will-begin/161379/1 "2003-03-14T16:45:41Z")
I’m uncertain where to put this thread. Feel free to move it if you wish, Mods. In the past day I’ve noticed a couple of unusual things. The first one is a little bit embarassing to admit. I was watching that vacuous show, Hot or Not (yo, cut me some slack–my girlfriend likes it), and at the conclusion of it a voice-over announcement said that next week’s episode would not be seen due to a two-hour special broadcast of… …America’s Funniest Home Videos. Man, if that’s not a place-holder, I don’t know what is. Then, this morning, I got an announcement from PBS, dated yesterday, stating that they would be presenting a “special night of programming” about Iraq on Monday night. It says in part: > [@](#): > > PBS changed its scheduled line-up to present this in-depth and topical perspective on the imminent conflict in a relevant timeframe. ABC and PBS seem to be banking quite heavily on a war next week, and they’re confident enough about it to preempt their programming–a week in advance, in the case of ABC. Has anyone else seen things like this? Can we draw any conclusions about it? ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-seems-to-know-when-the-war-will-begin/161379/2 "2003-03-14T16:57:52Z")
My wife is a teacher who does some curriculum/study questions for teachers to use for a particular news agency’s website. They asked her for something for when the war begins. It’s already done… ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-seems-to-know-when-the-war-will-begin/161379/3 "2003-03-14T18:08:03Z")
I’d like to know when it’s suppossed to be over. On what date will they resume regular programming? ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-seems-to-know-when-the-war-will-begin/161379/4 "2003-03-14T18:26:43Z")
Well, if I remember the ABC announcement correctly, only next week’s show is to be pulled. The final episode wherein two chunks of meat will be selected as Most Likely to Be Selected from the Underwear Ads in the Back of Cosmopolitan for a Quick Fap is still scheduled to air on March 27. So presumably the war will be over by then. Or the ratings are predicted to decline below that of a mindless reality program. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-seems-to-know-when-the-war-will-begin/161379/5 "2003-03-14T19:04:02Z")
The March 17th date has been circulating unofficially for a couple months, it got a fairly official confirmation in the British press a couple weeks ago. ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2003, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/television-seems-to-know-when-the-war-will-begin/161379/6 "2003-03-14T19:27:44Z")
They can’t start on 17 March, that’s right around the full moon. The new moon is on 31 March. Plus I’ll be travelling then, so it will be incredibly inconvenient. Put your money on March 30-April 1.