TV Station Cuts Off Show "24" At Last Minute...Fans Go Ape
 

I love "24". It's a great show although it does go a little overboard sometimes. If you notice from this story, this is what I've been beefing about for years. The government can invade our privacy, violate our birthrights, cause all kinds of grief and people will just sit on their asses. BUT if you fuck with their tv show programming they will go fucking ballistic.

----
http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/13635789.htm
Posted on Mon, Jan. 16, 2006
?24? gets cut off in last 10 minutesTV fans hit the roof when local newscast begins before show endsBy ADAM BEAMStaff WriterMidlands fans of the FOX show ?24? are used to cliffhangers ? but nothing like what happened during the fifth-season premiere Sunday night.
WACH-TV, Columbia?s FOX affiliate, cut away from the last 10 minutes of the blockbuster show to start its 10 p.m. newscast ? leaving fans in the Midlands hanging.
?Somebody has lost their mind,? said Steve Arnold, a fan who was watching the show at his Irmo home.
FOX has been promoting the show?s two-part, two-hour season premiere for weeks. It was scheduled to start at 8 p.m., after the conclusion of the NFL playoff game between the Carolina Panthers and the Chicago Bears.
The game went long, pushing the start of ?24? back about 10 minutes ? and ideally pushing back the start of the newscast.
WACH has a contract with WIS-TV, which produces WACH news programs, to broadcast its news at 10 p.m. If, for some reason, WACH has to delay broadcast, the station can record the newscast and air it later.
Sunday night, that didn?t happen.
?They should have realized that it was running over,? WACH station manager Scott McBride said from his home Sunday night. ?They just opted to take the news live, and that was a mistake.
?WIS or WACH-TV did not communicate to each other that the game was running long and that it was going to be a problem.?
Barry Ahrendts, WIS? director of marketing and programming, confirmed the two stations? contractual obligations.
?As to what exactly happened tonight,? he said, ?I don?t know; I wasn?t there.?
Paul Teeple, 43, of Columbia, hadn?t missed a second of ?24? from the start ? even from 2001 to 2003, while working in Nicaragua for his employer, an international development nonprofit organization. He had friends record it for him.
?I?m mad, I?m upset, and I?m having a hard time rationalizing this,? he said. ?This is the one TV show you wait for and wait for, and there?s always a cliffhanger ? but this is too much.
?It was irresponsible; I found it disrespectful of WACH to its viewers.?
McBride said the station will re-air the entire show ? but not before Part 2 of the season premiere, which airs at 8 tonight.
That doesn?t work well with the unique format of ?24.? Each hourlong episode chronicles a ?real-time? hour in the life of federal agent Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland.
While most shows start in the fall and continue throughout the season with occasional reruns, ?24? starts in January and runs straight through to May with no reruns.
?If you miss an episode, you?re out of the loop,? said 41-year-old Barry Ammons of Columbia. ?That?s just a big screw-up.?
The ?24? mishap might remind another generation of viewers of a national TV goof on Sept. 17, 1968, when NBC cut off the last hour of a pro football game to show the made-for-TV movie ?Heidi.?
As a result, football fans missed it when the Oakland Raiders scored two touchdowns in nine seconds to beat the New York Jets.
After WACH?s 35-minute newscast ? which did not acknowledge the loss of the last 10 minutes of ?24? ? the station aired a 30-minute infomercial for a diet book, ?The Omega 3 Miracle.?
But the coup de grace for ?24? fans came next, when WACH broadcast a rerun of a Season 1 episode of ? you guessed it ? ?24.?
Reach Beam at (803) 771-8405 or [email protected].

I watched 24 last night and I thought it was awesome. I couldn't image some idiot at the local station cutting off the final ten minutes of the show.

I am amazed by the idiots of this world!

Matt

Typical Americans that take everything for granted until they go without it.

We've been watching reruns for like 6 months now. Come on, cut us some slack. :1orglaugh

Iguess you dont realize how much they promoted the 2hour/ 2 night season premiere. Are you saying that if your FAVORITE program was cut short, you wouldnt be pissed off?

HA.. I knew it would get cut short due to the NFL game runnning a bit late. Luckily I TIVO'd the show following 24 cause I knew that would happen.

What are you talking about? 24 was awesome and if I was affected by it, I'd bitch and moan too. I'm not saying there was no reason to not get pissed, I'm saying people should speak up for everything they value and/or are passionate about, and not just the easier things.

Welcome to 2006 - an era of apathy and indifference...unless you fuck with their precious evening entertainment.

Some folks have some mighty sad priorities these days.

I'm glad I am not hooked on that show, I'd have thrown a fit, lol. I even tried watching the first part of it, but I just didnt get into it so changed to something else..

A freakin' men there daddy-o!

blasphemy :helpme

good thing they didnt try to do that here...guess our fox affiliate know what they are doing...

and yes..i am hooked on the show...

I would rather watch the simpsons family guy and american dad.

You do realize that the news is what brings in the majority of income for most television stations. Besides, you get what you pay for. It is free, there will be reruns.

I was watching a TV movie based on a true story once, and the local news promo during a commercial gave the ending away.

sounds like a bad strategy to get the people watch that news program which I bet is struggling in the ratings. If you want people to watch your news program, air it in between to high-ratings programs, NOT IN THE MIDDLE OF ONE SHOW, DAMNIT!!!