Well, I had another couple of email back and forths with Caroline Chang. For someone who has to deal every day with cranks like me, and even worse, I suppose, she sure does a good job of keeping a positive attitude. Thanks, Caroline! The bottom line, though, is that viewers should not expect any change in this situation; baseball and other sporting events run long and stations will accomodate viewers of other shows as best they can but no better. As I mentioned in the previous post, there was a mixup in communication: while station management intended the delayed network shows to begin on time, the techs responsible for running the equipment didn’t do as instructed. Ms. Chang suggests padding the recording time by an hour or more to allow for this situation, which is not unreasonable. Well, enough on this topic. The moral of the story has two parts: first, baseball sucks but some people like to watch it anyway so TV stations are going to continue showing it, and two, I need to pad the recording time when this happens.
Update 6:30 p.m.: Ms. Chang sent me what is likely the final answer in this dialog, and explanation of station policy on how to handle live events that run long: “If the game ran til Midnight, News would be canceled. It would air for an hour before Midnight however. Each night is different, so how we would handle would depend on the night and the programming that is scheduled on Fox that night. No matter what we do, and how we handle it, we upset somebody. Our contract with Fox requires the preempted shows to air prior to 2a, so we would back time between the News, and the shows scheduled at 11p & 11:30p. For each Giants game we plan a contingency plan that allows for a 5 hour game, and specifies what should happen for each 15 minute increment.”
BillSaysThis 