# CBS Sunday Line Up Delay Issues



## JLucPicard

Started this thread as to not load up the URGENT NOTICE thread with discussion items...

_The Amazing Race_ has been airing in this slot for a long time now, so hopefully most people who watch are very familiar with the issues involved with CBS football coverage.

Even in the Central and Eastern time zone, there are going to be MANY markets that aren't affected by this either. I happen to live in a market where the Vikings are generally aired in the noon time slot (whether it be CBS or FOX), so the CBS double-header game is generally the 3:00 game, so this affects me most weeks.

A couple things I have noticed this year that I don't think I did before:

The Sunday promos for the shows airing after football, once it is determined how much of a delay there was, tend to have notices at the bottom of the screen as to when those shows will actually air in that market.

I also saw a commercial the other day that caught my eye that was actually a dedicated promo to the fact that CBS airs _The Amazing Race_, _The Good Wife_ and _CSI:Miami _on Sunday nights, and they are aware that many times they are delayed. It then went on to suggest that people who record them pad my an hour (I think it was).

Now, if they could just decide to get rid of _60 Minutes_!


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## sieglinde

Hey, that is about the only show I watch on CBS, certainly the only one on Sunday night.


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## Hercules67

I pad 60 minutes by an hour!


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## sieglinde

Lol!!!!


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## Bierboy

Hercules67 said:


> I pad 60 minutes by an hour!


Should be renamed "120 minutes"...


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## Hercules67

Bierboy said:


> Should be renamed "120 minutes"...


Precisely!

Took my 2 days to see it.....


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## bud8man

Probably easier to set a recording time and channel for CBS from the time the show you want is supposed to start until say 30 or 40 minutes after prime time. 11:40 PM or so on the east coast. I just gave up watching CSI Miami. It was easier and freed up more time on my TiVo. Otherwise I was forced to watch CSI Miami first to delete a two hour recording for a one hour show.


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## lpwcomp

bud8man said:


> Probably easier to set a recording time and channel for CBS from the time the show you want is supposed to start until say 30 or 40 minutes after prime time. 11:40 PM or so on the east coast. I just gave up watching CSI Miami. It was easier and freed up more time on my TiVo. Otherwise I was forced to watch CSI Miami first to delete a two hour recording for a one hour show.


Um, but if you do a block record you have to watch _*everything*_ in the block before you can delete it.


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## That Don Guy

There is a change for 2012 - the "late games" in an NFL Doubleheader now start at 4:25 Eastern instead of 4:15. CBS has not made any announcement that it will be modifying its schedule (say, by padding its football coverage until 8:00 like Fox does, then pre-empting _The Mentalist_ and showing everything else an hour late), so expect another year of having to guess when the Sunday shows begin in the Eastern and Central time zones.

This affects the following Sundays on CBS:
September 16, 23
October 7, 21
November 4, 18
December 2, 16, 30

Note that this also increases the chance of Fox's Sunday schedule starting a few minutes late on Fox's doubleheader days (the Sundays that are not CBS doubleheader days, plus December 30). For those of us in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, remember that on Fox doubleheader days, The Cleveland Show (and whatever repeat Fox would air right before it) is pre-empted.


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## ronsch

And as Don mentioned, it's now The Mentalist in that 10:00 time slot so it becomes a little more important. I suspect I will simply pad The Mentalist by an hour.


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## 11274

That Don Guy said:


> This affects the following Sundays on CBS:
> September 16, 23
> October 7, 21
> November 4, 18
> December 2, 16, 30


What about the other Sundays? Is "60 Minutes" at 7PM safe on the other Sundays?


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## lpwcomp

It's best just to pad everything you are recording on Sunday night on CBS and FOX in order to ensure you get it all even if it is delayed by up to an hour. I wouldn't even bother just worrying about it on double-header Sundays as other sporting events (golf, tennis) can result in delays as well as the local team playing in the late game.


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## trainman

km said:


> What about the other Sundays? Is "60 Minutes" at 7PM safe on the other Sundays?


It depends -- even in non-doubleheader weeks, some local markets will get a late game on CBS (the difference is that they get _only_ a late game). In fact, Atlanta has a better chance of that than some other markets, since your local team is NFC.

You won't necessarily know during the season until a few days in advance, when the schedules come out that show which affiliates are carrying which games.

The good news is that you're safe _this_ Sunday -- the CBS affiliate in Atlanta is carrying their single game at 1:00.


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## lpwcomp

trainman said:


> It depends -- even in non-doubleheader weeks, some local markets will get a late game on CBS (the difference is that they get _only_ a late game). In fact, Atlanta has a better chance of that than some other markets, since your local team is NFC.


CBS is AFC.


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## mattack

BTW, 60 minutes is available as an audio podcast, so you can at least hear it there if you miss it.


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## That Don Guy

trainman said:


> It depends -- even in non-doubleheader weeks, some local markets will get a late game on CBS (the difference is that they get _only_ a late game). In fact, Atlanta has a better chance of that than some other markets, since your local team is NFC.
> 
> You won't necessarily know during the season until a few days in advance, when the schedules come out that show which affiliates are carrying which games.
> 
> The good news is that you're safe _this_ Sunday -- the CBS affiliate in Atlanta is carrying their single game at 1:00.


Actually, this Sunday, CBS is airing the U.S. Open men's singles final (at least that was the plan before the tornado in the area); unless it's a relatively short match, expect 60 Minutes to be delayed.

As for the rest of the season, on five of the Fox doubleheader days (9/30, 10/28, 11/11, 11/25, and 12/9), the Falcons have a 1:00 game on Fox; presumably, Atlanta's CBS station will not want to air its one game at the same time, as it knows most people would choose to watch the Falcons game, so it is likely it will air a 4:05 game on those days (note that a "late" game starts at 4:05 instead of 4:25 if it is not part of a doubleheader). However, there is another problem; since the CBS "national feed" starts at 7:00 on those days, Atlanta will probably get 60 Minutes "already in progress."

I know that some cities with this problem start airing the 7 PM show on one of the network station's subchannels; you might want to keep an eye out for that.


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## lpwcomp

That Don Guy said:


> As for the rest of the season, on five of the Fox doubleheader days (9/30, 10/28, 11/11, 11/25, and 12/9), the Falcons have a 1:00 game on Fox; presumably, Atlanta's CBS station will not want to air its one game at the same time, as it knows most people would choose to watch the Falcons game, so it is likely it will air a 4:05 game on those days (note that a "late" game starts at 4:05 instead of 4:25 if it is not part of a doubleheader). However, there is another problem; since the CBS "national feed" starts at 7:00 on those days, Atlanta will probably get 60 Minutes "already in progress."


You are ignoring the fact that this situation entails for every NFC city in the east or central time zones whose team is playing the 1:00 game on those days, including Atlanta's opponent on _*every one of them.*_


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## trainman

lpwcomp said:


> trainman said:
> 
> 
> 
> It depends -- even in non-doubleheader weeks, some local markets will get a late game on CBS (the difference is that they get only a late game). In fact, Atlanta has a better chance of that than some other markets, since your local team is NFC.
> 
> 
> 
> CBS is AFC.
Click to expand...

Heh, I thought about explaining exactly why I said what I said in my original message, but decided to leave it out for clarity.

Because the Falcons are the NFC, all but two of their games will air on Fox (those being two home games against visiting AFC opponents, which will air on CBS). That means there's more of a chance of the local CBS affiliate choosing to -- or _having to_ due to NFL rules -- not air a game at the same time as the Falcons are on Fox. Thus, Atlanta has more of a chance of having a late game on CBS during a Fox doubleheader week than, for example, Jacksonville.


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## lpwcomp

trainman said:


> Heh, I thought about explaining exactly why I said what I said in my original message, but decided to leave it out for clarity.
> 
> Because the Falcons are the NFC, all but two of their games will air on Fox (those being two home games against visiting AFC opponents, which will air on CBS). That means there's more of a chance of the local CBS affiliate choosing to -- or _having to_ due to NFL rules -- not air a game at the same time as the Falcons are on Fox. Thus, Atlanta has more of a chance of having a late game on CBS during a Fox doubleheader week than, for example, Jacksonville.


Ah, all is clear now. Yes, during non CBS double-header Sundays, CBS is more likely to air a game that does not conflict with the home team game. I don't think they are any NFL requirements that they do so however.

It will also depend on whether or not they have something else scheduled in the late game slot. For instance, tomorrow is a FOX double-header day and the Falcons are playing the 1:00 game, @KC. Since CBS has U.S. Open coverage starting at 4:00, they are also showing a 1:00 game here. Otherwise, they wouldn't be showing a game at all in either Atlanta or KC, especially since there aren't any 4:00 games with an AFC visiting team tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure that if a late game being shown in any eastern or central time market goes beyond the allocated time slot, they will slip the entire schedule and give everybody "bonus" coverage. No "joining 60 minutes already in progress"


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## Bierboy

ronsch said:


> ...it's now The Mentalist in that 10:00 time slot so _*it becomes a little more important.*_..


Important to whom?



Geez people...if you watch ANYTHING on CBS on Sunday evenings...pad...pad...pad....that's all you have to do. Not rocket science.


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## That Don Guy

lpwcomp said:


> You are ignoring the fact that this situation entails for every NFC city in the east or central time zones whose team is playing the 1:00 game on those days, including Atlanta's opponent on _*every one of them.*_


I limited it to Atlanta because I was under the impression that km is in Atlanta. Of course it applies to every NFL city, as well as the cities in those team's extended markets.

Also remember that, in NFL team cities, if the local team is playing a home game on Fox at 1:00, then CBS has no choice but to air a 4:05 game that day, even if the home game on Fox is blacked out.


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## lpwcomp

That Don Guy said:


> Also remember that, in NFL team cities, if the local team is playing a home game on Fox at 1:00, then CBS has no choice but to air a 4:05 game that day, even if the home game on Fox is blacked out.


So you're saying that places like KC and NO got no CBS game at all yesterday?


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## That Don Guy

lpwcomp said:


> So you're saying that places like KC and NO got no CBS game at all yesterday?


Oooh, you got me on that one - good catch. 

Week 1 is an exception because every CBS station has to show a 1 PM game (because of CBS's U.S. Open tennis coverage in what would be the 4:05 PM NFL time slot). It may also apply on October 21, as there are no 4:05 games scheduled on Fox that day for some reason (Fox is carrying a baseball postseason game that night "if necessary", but those usually don't start until around 8 Eastern).

There is another exception; if there is only one 4:05 game scheduled and it is blacked out, that network's station in the home team's city airs a 1:00 game and the other network airs only a 4:25 game; the "every CBS and Fox station gets to show at least one Sunday afternoon game" rule has priority. This can happen in Kansas City on 10/28 and Seattle on 11/11.


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## Hippster

According to TVNewser: CBS will now be adjusting their Sunday night schedules 30 minutes later on days they have a 4:00 football game. This will provide SOME relief from football padding madness but not eliminate it entirely.


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## MountainMan41

I am usually home Sunday evenings so I go to live TV for a few minutes some time about a half hour after 60 Minutes was supposed to start. At the beginning of each commercial they first go to a watch that shows the elapsed time of the program. If the watch (even showing the second hand...tick, tick, tick) shows 16 minutes after and the real time is 40 minutes after then I know that *60 Minutes* is running 24 minutes late.

Since we watch all three shows that follow *60 Minutes* on *CBS* I only need to pad *The Mentalist* by an hour and I am safe. The other two shows will be recorded but likely under the programming for the show following it. If I know The *Amazing Race* is 24 minutes late I can quickly find the beginning. Then I have to watch the end of that show on the beginning of the recording of *The Good Wife*. If we don't watch more than an hour of Sunday *CBS* at one sitting I just exit the program and it will resume right where the next show starts. Whew... such hard work. It never was that hard to watch *The Wonderful World of Disney* when I was a kid. All you needed to do was sit in front of the TV at the appropriate hour and have your sister walk over to the TV and turn it on.


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## tiams

Bierboy said:


> Important to whom?
> 
> 
> 
> Geez people...if you watch ANYTHING on CBS on Sunday evenings...pad...pad...pad....that's all you have to do. Not rocket science.


Padding is not an adequate solution when it means you have to give up a show that airs on another channel in the time slot after the one you are padding.


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## tiams

Hippster said:


> According to TVNewser: CBS will now be adjusting their Sunday night schedules 30 minutes later on days they have a 4:00 football game. This will provide SOME relief from football padding madness but not eliminate it entirely.


Seems like that will just screw things up more. I have 2 tuners. If TAR started on time at 8:00, then at 9:00 I could record something on ABC (Revenge) and something on NBC (The Apprentice). If TAR runs from 8:30-9:30 I have to give up one of the 9:00 shows.


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## That Don Guy

tiams said:


> Seems like that will just screw things up more. I have 2 tuners. If TAR started on time at 8:00, then at 9:00 I could record something on ABC (Revenge) and something on NBC (The Apprentice). If TAR runs from 8:30-9:30 I have to give up one of the 9:00 shows.


First of all, keep in mind that this only applies (a) in the Eastern and Central time zones, and (b) on CBS's nine NFL doubleheader Sundays. The rest of the time/country, the schedule is still the same as before - 60 Minutes at 7 (Eastern/Pacific), TAR at 8, and so on.

Second, since NFL coverage wasn't going to end at 7 anyway, it doesn't really matter what time they schedule the programs; 60 Minutes will start a few minutes after the last CBS game ends, whether they say it's "supposed to" start at 7:00, 7:30, or 7:41 and 36.2 seconds.

I think the big question will be, what happens if coverage runs until/past 8:00 Eastern, which is more likely now? When the U.S. Open men's singles final ran an hour long, CBS did pull an hour show from its schedule that night, although it was "only" a _Hawaii Five-O_ repeat; I don't know if it would do the same thing with a new episode of something.

I heard one theory that the "real" reason for the move was to prevent CBS stations that only got a 1:00 game on a CBS doubleheader day (because it's a station in an NFL team's city and that team has a Sunday home game that is either blacked out or is a 4:05 game on Fox) from showing the end of the NFL coverage before 7:30, but this doesn't make much sense as (a) this would affect at most two stations per week, and (b) the NFL doesn't really mind showing the ends of games in places where they're not supposed to air (I live in the San Francisco area, and occasionally CBS coverage will switch to the end of a blacked-out Raiders game when the game that was being aired in SF ends).


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## lew

ronsch said:


> And as Don mentioned, it's now The Mentalist in that 10:00 time slot so it becomes a little more important. I suspect I will simply pad The Mentalist by an hour.


The Mentalist is scheduled to air at 10:30. CBS won't start the show after 11p, the ratings won't count. 30 minutes of padding should be enough. The only problem would be if football runs very late. CBS decides to skip a different show and air Mentalist earlier the 10:30.

I'm just going to record Good Wife and Mentalist as a block.


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## Amnesia

lew said:


> I'm just going to record Good Wife and Mentalist as a block.


What's the upside to that?

It seems to me that you're better off recording in discrete units, that way you can delete them once you're done with them (or determine that they're not needed).


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## lpwcomp

Amnesia said:


> What's the upside to that?
> 
> It seems to me that you're better off recording in discrete units, that way you can delete them once you're done with them (or determine that they're not needed).


The upside is that you don't miss a second or so if "The Good Wife" is split between recordings. Also, if you have FRO SP's for both and "The Mentalist" happens to be a rerun or preempted, you don't risk missing even more of "The Good Wife.

BTW, even when I did care about the last show of the evening (CSI:Miami), I personally didn't do it that way. I'm just documenting what the upside is.


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## nyny523

Why even schedule a program on Sunday nights at 7PM during football season?

Late games now start at 4:25 - they last a minimum of 3 hours, so you KNOW your 7PM show will NEVER, EVER start on time - pushing your entire Prime Time lineup out. 

I won't even try to watch the Amazing Race this year, and I am scheduling The Good Wife as a 2 hour block on my Season Pass.

It's frackin' moronic.  

They should just let football run until 8PM, start 60 Minutes at 8PM and move one of the other Sunday night shows to a different night. Problem solved.


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## jcondon

nyny523 said:


> Why even schedule a program on Sunday nights at 7PM during football season?


This was what finally got me to dump CSI Miami a couple seasons ago. Missed too many episodes due to CBS's stupid scheduling. Decided I didn't really miss the show so I deleted the season pass. I will not even try to watch anything on CBS on Sunday nights.


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## nyny523

jcondon said:


> This was what finally got me to dump CSI Miami a couple seasons ago. Missed too many episodes due to CBS's stupid scheduling. Decided I didn't really miss the show so I deleted the season pass. I will not even try to watch anything on CBS on Sunday nights.


If The Good Wife wasn't one of my favorite shows, I would do the same. Instead, I just pad the SP and hour and move on...


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## WhiskeyTango

7 minutes late tonight.


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## sieglinde

What is really bad is shows being interuppted for sports programming I am not even aware of. I know NFL is on Sundays but last year a car race was delayed and they ran it the next day and I was not even aware of the original car race since I pretty much only follow MLB and NBA and some NFL. Same with golf and tennis matches. I am unaware of them and they do run over sometimes.


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## That Don Guy

nyny523 said:


> They should just let football run until 8PM, start 60 Minutes at 8PM and move one of the other Sunday night shows to a different night. Problem solved.


Change "move one of the other Sunday night shows to a different night" to "pre-empt one of the other Sunday night shows that night" and you not only solve the problem, but you do what Fox already does. You can't move a new episode of _The Mentalist_ or _The Good Wife_ to, say, Saturday night (the only place where CBS has an opening in its schedule) even once, much less five or six times a year, because the show's fans would get confused as to when it's on.



sieglinde said:


> What is really bad is shows being interrupted for sports programming I am not even aware of. I know NFL is on Sundays but last year a car race was delayed and they ran it the next day and I was not even aware of the original car race since I pretty much only follow MLB and NBA and some NFL. Same with golf and tennis matches. I am unaware of them and they do run over sometimes.


It can be worse on the west coast - occasionally, when there's a rain delay in a Sunday race on Fox at a track that has lights, and the delay reaches 8:00 Eastern, they will start airing programs during the delay - including airing them at 5 PM in the Pacific time zone!

As for choosing between sports and scheduled programs, besides the infamous "Heidi Bowl" from almost 50 years ago, I can think of two incidents that help decide the current CBS policy.
First, sometime in the 1970s or 1980s (boy, that really narrows it down), a golf tournament on CBS went into a playoff that lasted until, I think, 7:30 Eastern. At that point, CBS decided to start airing _60 Minutes_. So many people complained - and even Sports Illustrated mentioned it in its magazine (something like, "The winner of Sunday's golf tournament was - oops, we've run out of space") - that CBS announced pretty much the next day that they would never cut away from a live sporting event again.
Second, in September, 1987, a U.S. Open tennis match was running long, and it cut into the planned start time of CBS's news program, where Dan Rather was reporting on a visit to the USA by Pope John Paul II; Rather, under the impression that "the news comes before sports," walked off the set, and when the match ended suddenly, it took them six minutes to get him back to his desk - but CBS made it clear that the news department works for the network, and not the other way around.

ABC has an advantage in this; if a race on ABC is running long, it can switch it to one of the ESPN stations.


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## sieglinde

ABC could switch to one of the ESPN stations and that would be OK for those with cable. Not everyone has cable.


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## Bierboy

I think they were running over an hour late last night; I didn't hang around to check, but it was darn close. I'm padding TAR by 90 minutes now...ridiculous.


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## lpwcomp

Bierboy said:


> I think they were running over an hour late last night; I didn't hang around to check, but it was darn close. I'm padding TAR by 90 minutes now...ridiculous.


They were only "running over an hour late" if you failed to notice that they had actually changed the scheduled starting times by half an hour.


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## Bierboy

lpwcomp said:


> They were only "running over an hour late" if you failed to notice that they had actually changed the scheduled starting times by half an hour.


I see next week they're back to the top of the hour since there's no late game scheduled.


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## lpwcomp

Bierboy said:


> I see next week they're back to the top of the hour since there's no late game scheduled.


While it is not a CBS double header day, there are late games. They are showing one here (Oakland at Denver) since the Falcons are at home against Carolina in the early game on FOX.

It's very rare for there to be a Sunday when there isn't at least one late game on each network, the first Sunday of this season being one of those exceptions.

The really sad thing about yesterday's delay is that none of the late games went into OT.


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## subarr

ETA: Never mind, I found it in the sticky "Urgent Pad..." above...


So did CBS end up dropping a show last night? Or did they just start early? I had the Mentalist rerun scheduled to record, which was supposed to start at 10:30, but it apparently started earlier than that??? I didn't record any earlier shows, so I don't know what happened and when.


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## phox_mulder

subarr said:


> So did CBS end up dropping a show last night? Or did they just start early? I had the Mentalist rerun scheduled to record, which was supposed to start at 10:30, but it apparently started earlier than that??? I didn't record any earlier shows, so I don't know what happened and when.


Yes, they dropped The Good Wife which pushed Mentalist back to airing at 10:08/9:08.

Still late, but technically early since they said it would start at 10:30/9:30.

This is another reason them saying everything will start :30 late, is just dumb.

phox


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## That Don Guy

lpwcomp said:


> While it is not a CBS double header day, there are late games. They are showing one here (Oakland at Denver) since the Falcons are at home against Carolina in the early game on FOX.
> 
> It's very rare for there to be a Sunday when there isn't at least one late game on each network, the first Sunday of this season being one of those exceptions.


Usually, that's the only time (because of CBS's U.S. Open tennis coverage); however, this year, there are no late games on Fox on 10/21 as they want to keep the time slot open to air a postseason baseball game that afternoon if necessary.

I am not sure about this, but I am under the impression that there is not a separate network feed for cities in the east that have late games if it is not part of a national doubleheader. Presumably, most stations would record the feed and start airing it in its entirety when the football coverage ended. Keep in mind that non-doubleheader late games start at 4:05 rather than 4:25, so the delay shouldn't be as bad.

I can think of two primary reasons there is pretty much always a late game on the non-doubleheader network each week; one, it prevents the situation where a city's non-DH station has to show a game at the same time the "local" team has a game on the DH station; two, in order to prevent it, the NFL has to juggle the schedule around, since the six western teams (49ers, Raiders, Seahawks, Chargers, Broncos, Cardinals) can't play 1:00 Eastern home games.



> The really sad thing about yesterday's delay is that none of the late games went into OT.


The same thing happened (on Fox) in week 1; the last game, which also didn't go into overtime, lasted until 8:10. I'm pretty sure it is a combination of the new 4:25 start times and the "all scoring plays must be reviewed" rule. Also note that the networks will not cut away from "the last game" before it ends if it is a blowout.


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## lpwcomp

That Don Guy said:


> The same thing happened (on Fox) in week 1; the last game, which also didn't go into overtime, lasted until 8:10. I'm pretty sure it is a combination of the new 4:25 start times and the "all scoring plays must be reviewed" rule. Also note that the networks will not cut away from "the last game" before it ends if it is a blowout.


There's also the replacement officials are incompetent factor at work.


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