You’ll notice there’s no review for this week’s episode of The West Wing, The Al Smith Dinner.
That’s because WGRZ Buffalo, the NBC affiliate that broadcasts The West Wing, postponed it until midnight, in order to show a Buffalo Bills football game…without any prior notice! And when I tried to tape it, the game and the local news overran…so I STILL ended up missing it!
Naturally, I emailed the station a complaint. This is their response:
Good Afternoon,
Unfortunately, West Wing will not be rebroadcast anytime soon. WGRZ is in the final year of a five year agreement with ESPN to broadcast over the air (free TV) Buffalo Bills games that ESPN telecasts. We estimate that over one third of Western New York households do not receive ESPN pay service and are therefore unable to view. Our NBC contract also only allows us to show their prime time line-up at the late times that we did. We are sorry for any inconvenience as our goal was to satisfy the greatest number of viewers.
The live episode of West Wing is scheduled for November 6th.
Thank you for your feedback
Paulette D. Harris, Program Coordinator, WGRZ-TV/WGRZ.COM
Thanks for nothing. Go ahead and show your football. Never mind that this episode was an important one…in order to SET UP and PROMOTE next week’s live West Wing debate!
But this is not a concern to program planners. So be it — thanks to them, this is only the second time I’ve missed a West Wing episode…and for that, they can kiss my intellectual, non-football-watching ass!
