AdamTheJ 87 Posted April 28, 2012 Share Posted April 28, 2012 With the ABC O&O stations in all of the top 4 markets (NY, LA, Chicago, Philadelphia) expanding their 11pm news from 30 minutes to an Hour, there comes the possiblity of NBC affiliates, both O&O and Non-O&O, following suit. It wouldn't surprise me if WHDH in Boston was first and only to do this. If that were the case, the long-running Saturday Night Live in Boston would start at Midnight, rather than 11:30pm. I'm thinking about what would happen if SNL did indeed move to midnight, not only in Boston, but other cities, too. Needless to say, though IMO, SNL is running out of steam. Also, will the 11pm news in both the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones be expanding from 35 minutes to 45 minutes, or maybe an hour, like the Central and Mountain time zones are doing, causing Leno, Letterman, etc. to start even later? Could this be the end of Late Night TV as we know it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weeters 1829 Posted April 28, 2012 Share Posted April 28, 2012 What. The only reason the ABC stations are expanding their news on weekends is because the network isn't providing programming at that time. Saturday night after 11PM EST both ABC and CBS give the entire overnight schedule to the affiliates to fill with whatever they want, be it colorbars or infomercials or reruns of . It's mostly the same for Sunday night, but the network provides World News Now (or Up to the Minute on CBS) once Monday morning rolls around. NBC affiliates aren't going to go preempting Saturday Night Live because they would gain nothing out of it except having to pay people to stay late on a weekend. I doubt NBC would let them either. It sounds like you're taking WHDH's wishes to preempt the failure that was The Jay Leno Show because it was providing poor lead-in numbers for their news and somehow getting that WHDH just wants to produce more news. I can count on one hand (actually no hands) the amount of station managers who have thought "You know, maybe what we need to do is preempt Saturday Night Live so we can air more weather forecasts." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AriX 8 Posted April 28, 2012 Share Posted April 28, 2012 SNL is not near cancellation, and it is not exactly "running out of steam." The show's on-and-off quality has been its trademark for many years - there are ups and downs between seasons, ups and downs between episodes, and even ups and downs within episodes (even in a good episode, one sketch is great and the next might be pointless and dumb). My point is, it's hard to define something that has been going on for 37 years as just now being past its prime. Have you ever seen the episodes from the early '80s? I promise you, NBC is not going to cancel Saturday Night Live so that its affiliates can air 30 extra minutes of news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wabceyewitness 767 Posted April 30, 2012 Share Posted April 30, 2012 With the ABC O&O stations in all of the top 4 markets (NY, LA, Chicago, Philadelphia) expanding their 11pm news from 30 minutes to an Hour, there comes the possiblity of NBC affiliates, both O&O and Non-O&O, following suit. It wouldn't surprise me if WHDH in Boston was first and only to do this. If that were the case, the long-running Saturday Night Live in Boston would start at Midnight, rather than 11:30pm. I'm thinking about what would happen if SNL did indeed move to midnight, not only in Boston, but other cities, too. Needless to say, though IMO, SNL is running out of steam. Also, will the 11pm news in both the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones be expanding from 35 minutes to 45 minutes, or maybe an hour, like the Central and Mountain time zones are doing, causing Leno, Letterman, etc. to start even later? Could this be the end of Late Night TV as we know it? No. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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