Survivor stays, but Amazing Race is going to Sunday nights... It's an interesting move...sounds like a great slot on paper, but you know it's going to be delayed a lot because of football overruns in the East...

The reality game show genre is going downhill even as we speak. The numbers I saw from the "Survivor: Exile Island" finale were less than spectacular for a finale show. And "Amazing Race" moving to Sundays, like "The Apprentice" is? Not good at all. Not good at all.

And why is it not good it all? And why is it not good at all?
If it's fortunate and can get the lead out from some of the football games...then I'd say that's a pretty damn good thing, considering the NFL is the #1 sport in the Neilsens.

It's not good because football fans probably don't want to watch young googly-eyed couples fawning over each other one minute, then arguing the next...it doesn't make any sense. The show did very well on Tuesday and Wednesday nights; why would they move to Sunday. If a football game goes into OT, what happens to the episode? Race fans won't know what happened on that episode unless it's rebroadcast at 2:35 in the morning.

When's the last time a 4:00P (converting to Eastern since that's the pertinent time zone for our purposes) start wasn't over before 8:00P, even with an overtime period?

Not sure I get your point. Wouldn't an OT football game just delay things until the OT is over, with 60 MINUTES starting right after the OT is concluded (and a word from your local station)?

Of course, I've always maintained that with NFL games having a propensity to run over, CBS on doubleheader Sundays should just go to 7:30 ET as FOX does (not all of us can have Sunday Ticket, so unless a game is real compelling CBS generally won't take an audience to the conclusion of another--so that 60 MINUTES starts as close to on time as possible).

Doug

Won't football fans switch over to the Sunday night game on NBC immediately after the CBS game?

Is that how it works? I live on the West Coast, where the football game ends, a crappy nature show or infomercial they were deadrolling is JIP'd, and prime-time always hits on schedule.

I always figured, in the East, they JIP'd 60 Minutes when they needed to and everything else was fine. If that's not how it works then I prolly need to rethink my opinion.

But the Survivor finale was up against "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy"....so you have to take that into consideration.


There is one thing that Amazing Race has in it's favor- it has the youngest average audience for any CBS show even after the horrendous Family Edition (which was the network's suggestion) and the problems they've had this season. (per this NY Times article).
The problem was they were bouncing it all over the place this season (the 10pm Tuesday slot was particuarly confusing; TAR screams "8pm Eastern"). And the pre-emptions are sorta split- CBS does on occasion shorten 60 Minutes so their 8pm shows start on time.

NBC Sunday Night football doesn't worry me too much (at least til they start being able to cherry-pick games later on in the season), but Extreme Makeover:Home Edition does, if only because it may split the audience a little. However, I have read that TAR has hired one of the Survivor challenge creators/producers for next season, so they may be able to come up with some very interesting (and hopefully, more varied-too many "needle in a haystack"-type tasks this season) challenges. That and great casting can only help.

Bottom line is, CBS really didn't have too many slots where they could place TAR because they have a pretty successful schedule (keeping it at Wednesday meant being up against Biggest Loser and Dancing with the Stars). This I think is an inspired move, and it could pay off.

Not at all how it works. You're doing good if the 4:15 ET (1:15 PT) game is done with regulation by 7 ET. 60 Minutes rolls from the beginning at 7:00 or immediately after the end of the game and a score recap from NY, which ever comes later, (I don't think Don Hewitt, or whoever's taken over since his retirement, would allow anything less) so things are extremely variable on the eastern half of the country during football season. Every once in a while, the game will run long enough to actually require pre-empting "60," but not often.

Fox, on the other hand, just kills time until 7:30 if the game isn't over by 7:00. A few decent shows have been killed by Sundays at 7:00 scheduling as a result; IIRC, they finally wised up last year and put "Simpsons" repeats in that half hour until after football was over.

Had a longer post written but Unrealtor stole my thunder, so I'll just dovetail.

CBS will occasionally switch an audience to the end of another game before 60 MINUTES if the game is compelling enough (if we were going by last year--a Houston/Oakland OT game probably wouldn't qualify, but a Denver/NY Giants game would), even if we're past 7PM on the East Coast. And the only time I've seen 60 MINUTES curtailed because of the football overrun was the night of the Emmys last year (that night, 60 MINUTES became 34 MINUTES). This only applies to nights when CBS has a doubleheader. On single game Sundays, if you're getting a late game but are not on the West Coast 60 MINUTES starts at 7PM ET/6PM CT or when that game is over, whichever is later (with no switches to another game).

Hope I haven't confused y'all further. :)

Doug

A/n (possibly) interesting aside to the football overrun vs. primetime:

Back around 1984/1985 when NBC had football the first time, some episodes of "Punky Brewster" were broken up into 2 15-minute segments in case a game ran over.

Apparently the football games killed Punky a lot, as I remember seeing an ad in the TVG when football season was over, with "Punky" exclaiming, "No more football!"

Yes, here on the east coast* football overrun is commonplace. FOX's typical solution is to keep Terry, Howie and the boys in the studio showing highlights until the top or bottom of the hour so that the rest of the night runs at the proper time. CBS almost always runs their Sunday night lineup intact from whenever the game is over, with little regard to the clock. I can't remember the last time 60 Minutes started on time after a football game. Twenty to forty minute delays are typical.

Still, CBS seems to benefit from the scheduling oddity, and The Amazing Race might benefit as well. The wild card, as Jimmy mentioned, will be the new NBC package.

*Even in Michigan we can say "here on the east coast".

Matt, we will see how the Peacock does with prime-time football this fall. I remember NBC trying prime-time pre-season football before ABC had Howard Cosell & Company on Monday Night Football around 1968 or 1969, and Johnny Carson was upset that the game (I forget who played that night) would eat into The Tonight Show,and so NBC had to do a Best Of Carson that night.

And I won't forget the infamous Heidi game that NBC had in 1968. Do you remember it, Matt?

You're not a kid?????

That's because Fox has a 30-minute buffer built into the prime time schedule. During the football season, the 7:00 animated show is always a rerun. So if you miss it or it's JIP, you're not missing a new episode.

On weeks when Fox has the national doubleheader game (you can tell because the game time is 4:15, not 4:05), they keep every market with the studio show until 7:30. So, even if there's an overrun, it's minimal.

CBS has no such luxury, insisting on scheduling prime time at 7:00 sharp -- 60 Minutes ain't movin' any time soon.

But how that affects TAR will be interesting to see. Another time change can't help the show's attempts to rebound from the less-than-stellar Family race and then the scheduling gaffe of airing it at 10:00. I'll probably be watching the football game and then taping TAR to watch afterwards.

Looks like the "83" in his screen name fooled me too. His profile on here says he's 42...Geesh, that's scary.

Which, unless my math completely sucks, would make 1983 his high-school graduation year. Give or take.

Given what I've read so far, it's still no less scary, though. :)

Doug

While I totally understand that (and pretty much said so), CBS's insistence on scheduling 60 Minutes for 7:00 sharp actually means that it's "movin" just about every week that CBS has the late game. FOX chooses to build a buffer into their schedule and CBS chooses to not do that. It's not as though it's a "luxury" to either one of them, it's a corporate decision. CBS benefits from running 60 Minutes in its entirety at whatever late time they start it because it is a highly rated program that people tend to leave on after football is over. The question, as we said before, is what impact the NBC game will have on that traditional model.

As of this fall, the bumper will be an hour from 7 to 8--and they're now officially going to call it "The OT" for schedule purposes. If Terry and whoever's replacing J.B. don't go all the way to 8, there'll be a "comedy classic" at 7:30 (which here in Chicago would mean to us "The Three Stooges," especially if it was on WFLD, but not in this instance.)

They were the 3 eps that aired immediately after the 3-part opener, IIRC...but I digress, was wondering what the purpose of doing two separate 15-min. stories an ep on those shows was about.

Chuck Donegan (The Enlightened "Chuckie Baby")