Friday, August 29, 2008

Shifting Sands of Programming

Not long ago, I learned that WSKG is revamping their schedule to add Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and one of WEOS's shows, Out of Bounds with Tish Pearlman. The latter will be Sundays at 11:30am, by the way...I encourage you all to tune in, just do it Thursdays at 7pm to WEOS instead. :-)
(actually, during the Democratic and Republican Conventions, OOB is on at 6:30pm)


Anyways, this weekend, unbeknownist to many (which probably isn't a good thing) we're moving Wait Wait Don't Tell Me to 11am on Saturday as well. Previously it's been on at 1pm, after Whad'ya Know. Basically, we're moving things so it's:
  • 10am Car Talk
  • 11am Wait Wait Don't Tell Me
  • 12noon Whad'ya Know (two hours)
  • 2pm Only a Game (rebroadcast from 7am)
This kinda looks like we're responding to WSKG's moves. Actually, that's not the case, and I wish we weren't airing WWDTM at the same time they are...there's no getting around that WSKG's 90.9 signal is much bigger than our 88.1 signal.

No, the real reason we're moving it is because WEOS broadcasts a lot of Hobart Football games. And if it's not Football, then it's probably Soccer. Or Basketball. Or Lacrosse. And most of these games start at noon or 1pm on Saturdays. The upshot is that for most of the academic year, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me isn't heard at all on WEOS's airwaves. That rather sucks, to be frank. WWDTM is a very popular show. And it also works quite well when paired with Car Talk.

So with WWDTM on at 11am, it will usually avoid being pre-empted. Of course, this means that Whad'ya Know is going to get pre-empted a lot, but it's not unusual for the pre-emption to start at 1pm, so at least one hour of Whad'ya Know will get heard.

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