So last night at 9pm I turn to my CBS station, looking forward to finally (after weeks of delays) seeing the season premiere of King of Queens. “Gee,” I say to myself, “Doug sure has lost a lot of weight. And Carrie seems to have gone blonde. And this armored car robbery isn’t very funny.”
Yup, once again, CBS decided at the last minute to put on CSI: Miami. So last minute that my cable on-line TV guide still says King of Queens as I watch Horatio and company.
Why do networks do that? Doesn’t that just end up annoying the majority of viewers? I mean, people like me who tune in expecting to see King of Queens are not happy, and I sure as hell didn’t stick around to watch CSI: Miami, so they didn’t gain a viewer here. And people who want to watch CSI: Miami wouldn’t tune in at all, because the listings say that it’s King of Queens, and so they end up unhappy at missing a CSI: Miami.
It just doesn’t seem like anyone benefits for such last-minute changes, and that viewership couldn’t be very high for a show that no one knows is going to be on, and so CBS wouldn’t get as much ad revenue as they would by showing the show that people expect to find.
Often it’s because there’s something in the programme that would be deemed in poor taste due to some parallel with current event in the news. You could probably expect a showing of Airplane! to be cancelled if there was a major air disaster earlier in the day. Of course, without seeing the episode, it’s hard to know if this was the case at all.
Programming can be changed at the last minute for any number of reasons. Live sports can run long, or TPTB can decide that a show has better ratings and replace what is originally scheduled.
Programming information is provided anywhere from two weeks to a month out to newspapers, TV Guide, your online guides, etc. A lot can happen in that time. I would submit that the CSI Miami that you saw was a repeat. Generally, new shows and premiers of existing shows are heavily promoted, and it is highly unlikely that a network would slap on a brand new episode of a show without promoting it.
It’s also possible that your local affiliate, for whatever reason, decided to cover up network programming with shows with local interests…like airing a debate between candidates for state representatives, for example.
(ivylass, who’s worked in broadcasting for more than 15 years.)
For last night specifically, game 7 of the championship series between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees was being broadcast on Fox. This was something that no one could ever have anticipated happening back when the original schedule was put together. CBS wisely decided to reschedule the premier of King of Queens rather than go up against that juggernaut.
Exactly. Networks also keep an eye on what the others are airing. That’s why you’ll see Super Bowl half-time “shows” on other networks, or premiers of new shows after the Super Bowl, in an effort to pull away (or keep) viewers.
Was the episode of CSI Miami also a rerun? If that was the case, CBS realized that most viewers (like me) would be watching the 7th game of the ALCS on Fox during that time and that the season’s first new episode of King of Queens would definitely get stomped in ratings. Thus, they bumped King of Queens to a date where it wouldn’t have to compete against the intense drama of a Yankee-Red Sox series and replaced it with a repeat of CSI: Miami as a sacrificial lamb.
Aha, now that’s an explanation that makes sense. Not being a baseball fan, and living on the west coast, I wasn’t aware of the game (I know, really unAmerican of me). That would also explain why CSI: NY became a CSI rerun last night.
I remember that happening once. Back when Pope John Paul II was shot, the Chevy Chase/Goldie Hawn movie Foul Play was supposed to be on television that night. The plot revolves around an attempted hit on the Pope. So the network hurriedly substituted another film, Les Miserables.