[quote name=\'TimK2003\' date=\'Oct 5 2004, 05:39 PM\']Here in Cleveland, the local PAX affiliate was airing the "special week" of OTC at 5:30ET, I flipped to the national feed on DirecTV, as my local affiliate's audio always sounds over-modulated, and lo & behold -- INFOMERCIAL!!!
Usually, it's the other way around, when the local station will alter the programming for something that they think is better for that time slot, like earlier this year when the TPIR Primetime eps were airing.
WOIO/CBS-19 in Cleveland aired a movie in lieu of TPiR-Primetime, running a crawl which said TPIR would air sometime after 1 or 2 in the morning.
If that's the way our local affiliate feels about CBS programming, then I wish to hell they would air anything but Dan Rather during the time the CBS Evening News was scheduled to air -- Put HIM overnight -- Might prove to be a great way to put insomniacs to sleep! :-)
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What you got was what could be called Make Good Theater--the station has a bunch of make good advertising they can't reschedule in normal station breaks (and a title in one of their syndicated movie packages that has to air within a certain period). You pre-empt the network on a slow ratings night (like, say, Saturday night, if this was most of the prime time "TPIR"s), play the movie and take care of all of your make goods for a certain period. Everyone's happy and you may even get a higher rating than what the network programming would pull. The network's not happy about it, but they know it happens and if it's on a night like Saturday or a weak ratings night, they don't try to stop it.
(I'm staying out of Dan Rather--we don't need to get politics involved here...)