Watch CBS News

Let Me Speak To The Manager

50 years ago, WFAA President & General Manager Mike Shapiro decided that it would be a good idea to do a weekly 30-minute TV show on Channel 8 called "Let Me Speak To The Manager", where DFW viewers could write or call in to ask him any and all questions about television: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Mike and his Program Director, Jim Pratt, sat in an staged office with Mike behind the desk and Jim would shoot him the questions du jour. Some were easy, some were not.

This week, I feel like a little like Mike Shapiro (who by the way I met in 1972 and was a friend of my late dad Myrph Foote) so I want to answer a couple of things for everyone this week.

1. Where has CSI been the last two weeks? Well, to be honest, it was pre-empted twice due to two long running NFL games that started at 3:25pm on our designated doubleheader days. In today's world of professional sports, there's no telling when a game will end. But I can tell you that if these 3:25pm games run past 7pm, chances are one of your favorite prime time shows may be pre-empted. In the case of CSI, you have not missed a single original episode so this weekend CBS will pick up where it left off two weeks ago and air CSI at 9pm. We are an NFL single header station this weekend and even with a 3pm game Sunday (Denver at Oakland), you will see the entire CBS Sunday primetime lineup this weekend, including CSI.

2. Did you or do you just hold the CSI episodes from the past two weeks and reschedule them overnight? The answer is no. When a network show is pre-empted, there is no show to hold on to reschedule. The Network is the one who does the rescheduling. Now in the event that we interrupt say, for example, Young & The Restless, for breaking news, we do hold on to that one and reschedule overnight. So when the Network pre-empts, there is no show for us to reschedule locally. When we pre-empt a network show locally, we have a show to reschedule later.

3. I heard that my family on the West Coast saw CSI last night, is that true? Yes, but not an original one. West Coast viewers saw two CSI reruns the past two weeks since they were pre-empted on the full Network.

4. I can't find the missed CSI's online. Answer: an episode of missed network show does not go online until it airs first on the Network.

5. How soon do you know when something will be rescheduled? In the case of CSI, we get that information from the Network within a day or two. In the case of CBS Daytime Drama pre-empted by us for breaking news, we know within 1-2 hours.

Thanks to you all for your comments and calls. Due to the volume of calls we cannot always return your calls and emails personally but we try to!

See you next time.

(©2014 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

Latest News:

Top Trending:

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.