Jeopardy! broadcast impacts for Thanksgiving and Black Friday

It's the most pre-empted time of the year

(Yes, “pre-empted” replaces “wonderful,” and you’re supposed to sing it to the tune of the song written by Edward Pola and George Wyle.)

Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune get moved to a different time, or not aired at all, every so often. It’s a fact of life for fans of the two shows. Most often, it’s to make way for live sports to be aired, but that doesn’t cover all the possible causes. Other sports programming (like the NFL Draft) and local interest material (such as political debates) bump the two game shows also, as do other network specials (the 7:30 Eastern ABC markets have seen J! or Wheel, as the case may be, make way for award ceremony “red carpet” pre-shows, IIRC).

Just from my own sense of it, no days of the season are more impacted than Thanksgiving and the following day. And this year, the programming elbowing out the two Merv Griffin creations seems more extensive than ever. As this is a Jeopardy! focused publication, that’s what I’ve done research on, and what I’ll cover here.

Things are also different this season on account of the WGA strike and its replacement programming. In most seasons, Turkey Day and Shop-a-palooza feature just two regular games of Jeopardy!. Even with the new “postseason” plan Davies is implementing, we’d be done with those tournaments and into regular play by that point. But in Season 40, it’s the last two semifinals of the Champions Wildcard “Clubs” bracket that take the hit.

The impacts next Thursday and Friday are huge

In fact, they’re so far-reaching that putting them all into this post would make it way too long. This year, I checked all 209 media markets (much as I do at the start of each season when updating the master station list), and compiled the information into a color coded table.

All of this data comes from zap2it, a service provided by media company Nexstar. Its specific page for Jeopardy! is here. You can enter a ZIP code and a cable provider to bring up localized information; “Upcoming Episodes” will show you airings up to two weeks out.

Here is that full table of impacts.

(I’m putting the list here so you don’t have to go any further if you don’t want to.)

What exactly is causing all of these effects?

It’s far simpler to set out the programming responsible for all of the changes. Split out by network, all times Eastern except where noted under NBC:

• ABC

  • Thanksgiving: Nothing

  • Black Friday: Noon to 11 pm — three college football games (Miami at Boston College, UTSA at Tulane, Texas Tech at Texas), with highlight shows between them

• CBS

  • Thanksgiving: 4:00-4:30 pm — The NFL Today; 4:30-8:00 pm — Washington Commanders at Dallas Cowboys

  • Black Friday: Noon to 7:30 pm — two college football games (Iowa at Nebraska, Missouri at Arkansas), with highlight show between them

• FOX

  • Thanksgiving: 4:00-8:00 pm — two college basketball games (Arizona vs. Michigan State [men], Tennessee vs. Indiana [women])¹

  • Black Friday: Noon to midnight — four college sports games (TCU at Oklahoma [football], Oklahoma vs. TBD [men’s basketball], Iowa vs. TBD [men’s basketball], Oregon State at Oregon [football]), with highlight shows between them

• NBC

  • Thanksgiving: Noon-2:00 pm in all time zones — National Dog Show; 2:00-5:00 pm in all time zones — replay of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade²; 8:00-11:30 pm Eastern — San Francisco 49ers at Seattle Seahawks

  • Black Friday: 7:00-7:30 pm — Big Ten Countdown; 7:30-11:00 pm — college football (Penn State at Michigan State)

There is the potential for effects to carry over beyond the times listed above. This is particularly so for the football games on CBS; if the games, or their postgame shows, run long, Jeopardy! may be joined in progress, and stations typically do not replay episodes at a later time in such instances.

I’ve made the list; maybe I’ll check it twice

But I will tell you who’s naughty and nice, with respect to this at least.

First, the nice. Fifteen media markets have green entries in both columns in my table; that is, they are absolutely clear of impacts, and Jeopardy! will be seen at its normal time and on its normal station on both days. Breaking them down by category:

• The independents: Phoenix and Salt Lake City, where Jeopardy! airs on a station not part of one of the four broadcast networks

• The “CBS late crowd”: Six markets – Las Vegas; Honolulu; Colorado Springs; Eugene, OR; Bakersfield, CA; and Cheyenne, WY – where the show airs on CBS at 8:30 pm Eastern or later

  • In Albuquerque-Santa Fe, El Paso, Boise, and Butte-Bozeman, MT, Jeopardy! is scheduled to air at 6 p.m. Mountain Time as usual on both days, but could be impacted on Thursday if Commanders-Cowboys goes late

• The “NBC sweet spot”: In Sioux Falls, SD and Joplin, MO-Pittsburg, KS, the NBC affiliate airs Jeopardy! at 5 pm Central time. This just happens to fall after the encore presentation of the Macy’s parade on Thanksgiving, and before the start of the college football on Black Friday.

• The NBC “rebels”: Five Central Time NBC affiliates – in Oklahoma City; Waco, TX; Bismarck, ND; Panama City, FL; and Dothan, AL – are declining to air some part of NBC’s network daytime programming on Thanksgiving.³

And now the naughty — the nineteen places where Jeopardy! simply won’t be seen at all on Thursday or Friday of next week. I’m grouping them by network.

• CBS: San Antonio; Flint, MI; Fargo, ND; Montgomery, AL; Peoria, IL; Columbus, GA; Corpus Christi, TX; Amarillo, TX; Duluth, MN; Sioux City, SD; Rochester, MN; Biloxi, MS; Abilene, TX; Watertown, NY; Laredo, TX

• FOX: Nashville; Kansas City; Syracuse, NY

• NBC: Casper, WY

Other notable entries

• Some of the decisions just seem weird to me. Take WBNS in Columbus, Ohio, for example. It’s a 7:00 pm Eastern CBS market, so football affects Jeopardy! on both days. They’re moving the Thursday episode to late night (2:07 AM), but not airing the Friday one at all.

• The Thanksgiving programming on NBC results in many of its Central Time affiliates (St. Louis, for example) having Jeopardy! moved or pre-empted entirely, but Wheel of Fortune airing as usual at 6:30 pm. I’m sure there are people out there – all right, one person in particular – to whom that’s music to their ears.

An advisory note for everyone reading: even with the data I’ve compiled, check your local listings. It’s possible that the information could change between now and next week, or what was provided to zap2it is incorrect, or I entered it wrong.

An early happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers — and best of luck navigating the rocky river of Jeopardy! viewing late next week.

1. Fox has the early NFL game (Green Bay Packers at Detroit Lions); along with its pregame and postgame shows, coverage runs from 10:30 am-4:00 pm. No Fox station airs Jeopardy! earlier than 4:30 pm Eastern.

2. The main presentation of the Macy’s parade is 8:30 am-noon in all time zones, before Jeopardy! airs anywhere.

3. The first four of those aren’t showing the replay of the Macy’s parade; WRGX in Dothan is instead skipping the National Dog Show, opting instead for Tamron Hall as usual at noon, followed by the parade rerun from 1:00 to 4:00 pm.