Programming
WTMJ broadcasts all of NBC's schedule, with the exception of some older made-for-TV movies bought by Channel 4 which are used to pre-empt NBC movies or Saturday night programming for additional local advertising revenue several times a year. However, this practice is nothing new, for it also had a reputation of pre-empting or delaying a handful of NBC shows in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (NBC's Daytime gameshow and soap opera lineup, moving Sanford and Son to Saturday nights in the 1970s and airing the syndicated Fame in place of Gimme a Break! and Mama's Family on Thursday nights during the 1983-1984 TV season were examples of this). But its most controversial move would come in 1979 when it asked NBC permission to delay The Tonight Show to 11 pm so it could carry reruns of Maude. It tried again in 1984, attempting to ask for a Tonight Show move to 11:30 pm so it could air reruns of Trapper John, M.D. after the late news starting in September of that year. NBC refused again, and the program was moved to then-independent WVTV (Channel 18), where it aired at 10:30 pm from September 1984-September 1988, when WTMJ decided to cede to NBC and air the program at its regular time. The station also delayed Late Night with Conan O'Brien to 12:05 am from the program's beginning in 1993 until 2001.
WTMJ decided to pre-empt the entire run of the primetime poker game show Face the Ace in August 2009, replacing the series with station-slotted paid programming, the first time any Milwaukee station has pre-empted a significant portion or all of an entire primetime network series since the early 1990s. It is unknown if moral objections by WTMJ management (as sister station WGBA carried the series) or ratings concerns played into the pre-emption.
The station's sole syndicated programs are Access Hollywood and Access Hollywood Live on weekdays and late weekend evenings, Comedy.tv after Saturday Night Live, Hispanic Business Today, and Alliant Energy Powerhouse, by far being the station with the lowest number of syndicated shows in the market. WTMJ had been the long-time Milwaukee home for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! from their premieres in the early 1980s until fall 2005, when both shows moved to WDJT-TV, and was the first station to air Oprah until an en-masse deal with Hearst's television stations in 1994 moved the show to WISN. WTMJ (and WPXE during the LMA years) had aired Martha Stewart's Martha Stewart Living and then Martha until September 2007, when Martha moved to WISN.
Currently WTMJ airs Today in two segments; the original 7 am–9 am block, followed by The Morning Blend, then the final two hours of Today from 10 am–noon, leading into the relocated hour-long Live at Noon newscast and Days of Our Lives, which moved to 1 pm on September 10, 2007. The station also provides a pre-game news segment, and pre-game and post-game "ride home" weather segments to the Milwaukee Brewers, which are carried on the scoreboard of Miller Park.
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Famous quotes containing the word programming:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)