doodledee

A couple weeks back one of the Twins' playoff games was on a Wednesday night. It was an ESPN game, which meant that all the shut-ins without cable wouldn't have been able to see it unless it was also simulcast on a local broadcast channel. Uh oh. Mobilize the Sid Hartman Fan Club and call Mike Max, we have a situation here.

It turned out it wasn't a big deal. At least it wasn't after someone at the Magic Kingdom called up the local ABC station operator and told them to show the game instead of the usual Wednesday night ABC programming. I'd like to think of it as a selfless gesture on the part of Disney, but I'm thinking it had less to do with people seeing the game and more to do with people seeing the commercials. But whatever, at least it was on.

Wednesday nights are bad for TV. They have been since 90210 ended, really. I guess this year's Wednesday night hopes are pinned on this 'Lost' show. Something like 5 people are already hooked it. One of them is Huna. And man was he bummed when he got home to find that his Tivo was taping the Twins instead of his new favorite show. How bummed you ask? Bummed enough to write in to KSTP and ask that they replay the episode he missed. (Translation: hardcore bummed.)

PLEASE re-run tonight's episode of Lost. Many of us at work are getting hooked on this show. We were greatly disappointed to find out the preemption by baseball, with almost no notice of a switch to channel 45... [rinse, repeat]

The program director dude wrote back:

[long explanation of all the stuff they did to try and notify people of the programming change]... I apologize for the inconvenience. However, due to the network contracts we only get one run of the show.

I followed-up with the PD, hoping to reassure him he'd done the right thing.

Despite what [Huna] claims, there are only maybe 2 people at the office that are hooked on the new show. On the other hand, many of us actually are hooked on Twins playoff baseball and we appreciate your efforts in getting it out there.

That said, don't even *think* about messing with 'Desperate Housewives' on Sunday. That's just being unreasonable.

He wrote back:

It's a deal.

I'm watching the Vikes game on ESPN as I write this. A quick check of the TV listings shows that while it, too, is being simulcast locally, it's being shown on the little brother Channel 45 instead of the Real Deal Channel 5.

Why, you ask?

The decision to move the game [from Ch5 to Ch45] was made Thursday after ABC put pressure on its affiliate not to bump its Sunday prime-time lineup to KSTC. In defending their call, KSTP executives pointed to the strong local ratings for "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and "Desperate Housewives"...

Now I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

Vikings game moved to Channel 45 [strib]
'Lost' official page [abc]