So, here we are again. It looks like we scraped by on Fox and we have a shot at watching the premiere of the new show “The Orville” on time. I am sure that in the future, if it remains in the same time slot, that over running football games will derail it often.
11.17.1968, the Jets and the Raiders had a three hour time slot. At 7.00 pm, NBC stopped broadcasting the game and ran the movie “Heidi” in its assigned time slot. There was 1.01 minutes remaining on the clock when the network cut the game off and ran the movie. This was the right decision, but it was widely criticized. This led to the fact that Football is King and those of us who just want to watch something else , even scheduled TV are just out of luck.
What I do not understand is why a game that is to be played in four fifteen minute quarters can sometimes take four hours to play.
I have seen football. Why does the clock have to stop? Why does any given boring five minutes of this monumental waste of time need to take twenty minutes of real time? Also: why does it have automatic precedence over the airwaves? Schedule the junk for four hours a game and leave the rest of us alone
The Heidi Game was widely criticized not because they cut away from a live event. It was criticized because they cut away from a live sporting event that turned out to be one of the most exciting finishes in sports history. It was the wrong decision.
Today it’s not even a close decision. Other than sports I watch 100% of tv on DVR or on demand. It makes no sense to interrupt a live event for something taped.
And by the way, one of the main reasons games take so long is so the tv station can make money on the commercials. Guess what side of the issue they will be on.
Speaking of advertising; one Heidi was being sponsored by Times (meaning every ad aired would be one of theirs) and NBC signed an iron-clad contract w/ them to start the movie on time & not interrupt for anything short of a national emergency. NBC would’ve had major lawsuit for breach of contract if they stayed with the game (which admittedly senior executives did decide to do at the last minute, but there was a communication breakdown).
And have you ever tried to record something on a DVR that was scheduled for after a football game than ran over? I have, and it’s not pretty. Because the show scheduled at 7:00 starts at some point after 7 so I have to set up the DVR to continue recording for some predetermined amount of time after the scheduled ending - and hopefully I chose enough time. Depending on what I want to record that night, I could end up with the first half of a show on one recording and the second half on another.
The right decision would be to schedule the damn football game for a four hour block and fill in the extra time with some combination of post-game talk/random sitcom rerun depending on how much time is left between when the game actually ends and the end of the four-hour block.
And they still cut off football games- when there are two games scheduled on the same network and the early one runs late, they don’t show both simultaneously They either cut off the end of the first one or join the second in progress.
Of course I have. I just adjust how I watch. Most things that I DVR I watch when I feel like it. If it’s a sunday show on a football network I make sure I watch soon so I can catch it on demand if I need to. I can’t fast forward through commercials but no big deal.
The game started at 4:25 and the Orville was scheduled for 8:00. This is not a three hour time slot. The game ended early and they filled the extra time with fifteen minutes of post game talk. The Orville aired at the exact time it was scheduled.
Not only is the network making an effort to solve this problem they are doing so with your preferred solution.
On the other side of the coin you have the XFL which had to change its rules so as not to delay SNL after an OT game delayed SNL’s live start by like an hour.
Fox did, at least this time. CBS usually doesn’t (unless they are suddenly going to start this year).They schedule a 4 pm game until 7 , and a 4:25 game to 7:30. Three hour slot- and the game frequently runs over.
And since Fox can apparently do it, and the NFL can do it (since the Sunday night game is scheduled at least 4 hours after the late afternoon game starts), it seems that CBS ought to be able to do it as well.
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