Football rant

Another pre-emption. 60 Minutes has been pre-empted for as long as I
can remember in favor of a football game that runs too long.

Barry Margolin...

First of all, they rarely pre-empt 60 Minutes because of football, they
just start it late, and the whole prime-time schedule is delayed.

Zane...

There is a very easy solution to get around this; doesn't matter if you
use Tivo, a DVD recorder, or a VCR.

(A) If you are home Sunday night.

Flip on CBS at the 7 pm mark and check to see how much game time
remains. At that point one can approximate when 60 Mins, Race, Case,
and Trace will start, and the recording device can be set. Still a
good idea to pad by 15 minutes on each end.

suzee...

I generally double the time left and add 5 minutes. Usually works out
about right.

(B) If you are not home.

Then it gets trickier. It all depends on which CBS shows you want to
see. A DVR can be set for manual recording, which will get the entire
CBS lineup. With the other two devices, you pretty much have to set
them for six hours, which means picture quality will diminish.

What bugs me about this is how reliable it is that football will run
long -- it happens at least 80% of the time. CBS's Sunday lineup

SoHillsGuy...

So, is this the rational argument of an adult trying to calmly make a
point, or someone acting like a five-year old? You tell me.

jayfarrell...

You put up with something long enough, you pop. He popped. He was mad
as hell, and didn't want to take it anymore. So what?

And what, exactly, do you think you sound like?

usually gets delayed as a result, and Fox would frequently join programs
like Futurama and King of the Hill in progress at the 15 or 20 minute
mark (what's the point?). Yet after all these decades, the networks
refuse to include this extra time in the schedule. On the rare
occasions when the game doesn't use all the time, I'm sure they could
find some post-game material to fill in.

I hate football, I hate football, I hate football. I don't watch
football. I don't want to watch football.
I don't want to watch grown men fighting over a football.

If football is so important, put it on a channel where it's
appreciated. Establish an "all football network" where football
lovers could tune in whenever they want. They can show all football
games being played. If there is no football game being played, they
can rerun old TV shows.

SoHillsGuy...

Or, they could establish a network solely for whiny old news programs
like "60 Minutes" for whiny viewers who are too set in their ways that
easily get freaked out when a program might start 30 minutes late nine
times a year. Then we wouldn't have to listen to folks like you.

See, it works both ways.

janospetrik...

60 Minutes has been scheduled for the same time, every Sunday night,
for over 25 years. It's in the TV Guide.

The football runovers aren't scheduled. If a program isn't going to
air on time, then don't schedule it.

If you like football, go wild. Just don't tell me that I have to watch
it. I'm not interrupting a game that's supposed to last an hour but
goes on for 3 hours. Put it on a channel where
you can watch it without bothering anyone else.

janospetrik...

No. Nothing pre-empts a football game. Nothing prevents you from
watching football. I don't expect you to watch what you don't like.
Why do you think that I should watch what I don't like?

Nyssa...

Two words:

Heidi

&

Super Bowl

Nyssa, who doesn't like football either but remembers a time
that it WAS cut off before the end of the game...during the
Super Bowl

massello...

It was not a Super Bowl game. See

Nyssa...

Sorry, I misremembered the specific game. I'm not a football
fan (nor do I play one on TV), but I did remember all the
flap and flak that was flying around after the event.

Nyssa, who would have remembered if it had been a Stanley Cup game

janospetrik...

How long ago did this happen? Has it happened ever since?

Nyssa...

It was back in the earliest years of the Super Bowl. Back
when Joe Namath was the Jet's star QB.

The punch line is that the network cut off the last two
minutes of the game for the presentation of the made-for-TV
production of Heidi. They figured that the winner was
already decided since time was short and one team had a
fairly big lead.

Wrong! The Jets IIRC came back with a couple of quick rushes
and ended up winning in an upset.

The network phonelines when radioactive with all of the
irate callers.

And no, no network exec has been foolish enough to ever
do it again, especially for a championship game!

Nyssa, who wishes she could have been a fly on the wall of
the morning-after network meeting

Of course, if you like to watch grown men fighting over a ball for 3
hours, you're not expected to understand.

Victor Velazquez...

People may like to watch football because people like to play football. If
you've never done that, you might be incapable of understanding.

It's only a hypothesis but it sure would explain a lot.

record hunter...

I read the entry, and yes, that's very interesting info. I like knowing
more about how the brain works.

One of my favorite things to do in this life is listen to music. But I
couldn't *make* music if my life, your life, and the life of whoever
discovered mirror neurons all depended on it.

If you like football, then watch it till your heart's content. Don't

record hunter...

ICAM. Glad I don't watch 60 Minutes.

Anthony D. Langford...

I admit the pre-emptions or delays are annoying because I can't record
Cold Case or WAT if I'm not at home. But you're not going to get rid

pkj0891...

I just got to the end of the thread, but hold up . . . why can't you
record unless you're home? Reading Barry's comment made me think
further about this, and I just asked my son, who has both Tivo and a
Comcast DVR.

Leaving aside a VCR . . . according to my son, he can manually adjust
timer recording on both gadgets. He thinks Tivo is much more
functional than the Comcast DVR in that regard, but he said you can
manually adjust timer recording to pick up all the CBS shows which
follow a football overrun. He uses his Tivo for overruns of wrestling
and his gf's favorite show, DH. Since my son is huge football fan,
Sunday night is not a problem for him.

Me, I'm still in the Dark Ages with VCRs, so it's not an issue with

record hunter...

Let them watch baseball.

me, although I find the overruns as annoying as everyone else.

record hunter...

I use a VCR on Sundays. When ABC started to have good shows on Sunday,
it became a problem, because my first choices to tape were Cold Case
and Gray's Anatomy (now it's Brothers & Sisters). It's not a problem
anymore, as football's on NBC, but anytime it's on CBS, there's an
obvious problem getting all of Cold Case. So until football moved, I
gave up on Cold Case.

I agree with Janos. If football is *that* lucrative, why can't it be on
the Football Channel? It's not as if the viewers advertisers most want

Default User...

What a maroon. The networks are FIGHTING over football. It draws
tremendous ratings. Why would they give it up?

can't afford -- and more importantly, don't already have -- cable.

janospetrik...

Delayed is more accurate than "pre-empt", but you helped make my point.
Pre-game and post game shows can be used to fill in the time till the
next half hour. It should be scheduled so that people who don't watch
football can plan their recording or viewing.

As I said, I don't care if some people like to watch football, they
just shouldn't expect the rest of the viwers to have it forced down
their throats.

SoHillsGuy...

Seriously, pal, you need a reality/perspective check. No one is
"forcing it down your throat." No one is forcing you to do anything.

So, big deal. Your program starts *late* (not pre-empted) on about
nine or ten Sundays a year. And this is what you're choosing to whine
about on Christmas? Deal with it. There are bigger issues in life
for people to deal with than you having to wait 10-30 minutes for your
program to come on.

janospetrik...

And you chose to respond on Christmas, so there goes that argument. I
guess you interrupted your scheduled appointment in the bathroom with
your naked body-painting buddies.

You can do that. Enjoy yourselves, but it's not on my schedule, so
don't expect me to watch.

Kevrob...

The "Heidi Game" was not the Super Bowl. It was a regular season
matchup between the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders of the American
Football League, whose merger with the NFL was several years down the
road.

The game broadcast was only cut off in the Eastern and Central time
zones.

BTW, FOX has addressed this problem by scheduling a postgame show after
games that start at 4:00 p.m. Eastern, called "The O.T." If the game
runs long or actually goes into overtime, they can shorten or dump the
studio wrapup, without affecting the entertainment schedule.

When they used to schedule "King Of The Hill" at 7:00 Eastern, I
remember seeing some KOTH promos where Hank Hill explained that their
show would be delayed or skipped, but seeing as how it was for
football, no right-thinking Texan could complain about that. :)

Live sports remains a "killer ap" for broadcast TV and non-premium
cable. Unless one has to work during gametime, people don't tape or
TiVo games. OK, the real pigskin-heads record them while watching them
live, and re-watch them later in the week, like coaches "breaking down
film." But for most normal joes and janes, live sports is one of the
few times they can be expected to sit down in front of the tube, watch
from start to finish, and not zap the commercials.

I love football. Too bad I'm a Giants fan! They stopped playing
football about 6 weeks ago.

wdstarr...

And yet they could still make it into the playoffs.

I want to see a 7-and-9 team win the Super Bowl. I really do.

janospetrik...

I can respect football lovers.

The problem is that they don't respect anyone else.

record hunter...

Are you an asshole for a living? 'Cause you'd make a lot of money at
it, I can tell.

SoHillsGuy...

So, let me get this straight. I'm an asshole, because I told someone

janospetrik...

Somehow, I can't help thinking that guys who get naked together and
paint each others' bodies are experts on assholes.

record hunter...

You would think, wouldn't you? (Not that there'd be anything wrong with
that: it'd be more fun than football.)

record hunter...

Well, that would be what's on opposite 60 Minutes and Cold Case.

of sports on tv, especially football. It's America's favorite sport
and the ratings are high week after week. It's only a few months out
of the year so you'll just have to deal. BTW, there is a football
network, just so you know.

Anthony (who loves football, GO BEARS!)

try to shove it down my throat.

Dano...

No one's shoving anything down your throat. Turn the friggin' channel ya
doofus! Sorry if you find 60 Minutes, which has become mostly celebrity
puff pieces, scarcely any *real* journalism any longer, such much see TV,
but there is other programming available, most of it far superior to 60
Minutes.