K20GJ - Programming

Programming

The station airs a number of syndicated programs. The Today show airs in two segments, with the fourth hour shown after the hour-long noon newscast, and as such, Days of our Lives airs on a one-hour delay. The Rachael Ray Show airs after the first three hours of Today, followed by a locally-produced lifestyle program called Studio 5.

KSL-TV airs most of the programming on the NBC schedule, as well as locally produced news and sports programs. Due to its ties to the Mormon church, KSL-TV also airs programs relevant to Mormonism, such as History of the Saints, Music and the Spoken Word and Mormon Times, and pre-empts regularly scheduled programming to carry the bi-annual LDS General Conference. KSL-TV is one of the few remaining television stations in the United States that still signs off at night, doing so at 3:30 a.m. Saturday nights.

Occasionally the station has decided not to air some network programs, such as the short-lived sitcom Coupling and the long-running Saturday Night Live. SNL is preempted for the local SportsBeat Saturday, a holdover from the station's CBS days (CW affiliate KUCW currently airs Saturday Night Live instead). As a CBS affiliate, KSL-TV aired the drama Picket Fences at 11 p.m. on Saturdays instead of 9 p.m. on Fridays. KSL also refused to carry much of the network's poker programming such as Poker After Dark (now all canceled due to legal complications) due to ownership, Church and viewership objections against gambling.

On June 12, 2011, KSL-TV announced it had declined to carry the period drama The Playboy Club. The station's president stated the show was "completely inconsistent" with the station's own mission and branding. The station is a sponsor of the "Out in the Light Campaign," which educates people on problems associated with viewing pornography, and the station did not want to be associated with the Playboy brand. MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYU/KUTV-DT2 aired the program in the market at the original 9 p.m. Mountain Time Monday time slot, while KSL-TV carried the locally-produced newsmagazine We Are Utah, which resembles WCVB in Boston's Chronicle in format. However, like Coupling, The Playboy Club was both lambasted and ignored by critics and viewers alike and was the first network cancellation of its television season after only three episodes aired. KSL continued to air already filmed episodes of We Are Utah in the 9 p.m. slot until the October 31, 2011 premiere of Rock Center with Brian Williams.

Most recently, on August 24, 2012, KSL-TV announced they would not broadcast NBC's sitcom The New Normal due to issues in regards to gay parenting that they deemed objectionable. Jeff Simpson, the CEO of Bonneville International, said that the show's "dialogue might be excessively rude and crude. The scenes may be too explicit or the characterizations might seem offensive... For our brand, this program feels inappropriate on several dimensions, especially during family viewing time." The New Normal instead runs on KUCW, which airs the show on Saturday nights, while KSL-TV airs the Live Well Network series My Family Recipe Rocks! in the sitcom's Tuesday timeslot. The New Normal is the only NBC primetime show to have been preempted by the station since it joined the network in 1995, to have been ordered for a full season by the network (other primetime series that the station has declined to air citing objectionable content have been cancelled by NBC due to low viewership early in their runs).

Even with its tradition of screening possibly objectionable programs, some, such as The Book of Daniel (which was not shown by several other NBC affiliates, especially in Bible Belt states) and a paid political message criticizing the Iraq War (which featured Cindy Sheehan) have been aired by the station.