The upshot of this is, I'm gonna screw up and miss taping Buffy
At some point tomorrow, the Fox and UPN affiliates here in the Twin Cities are exchanging channels.
That is to say, Fox 29 is going to be Fox 9, and UPN 9 is going to be UPN 29.
Both stations' web pages have nice banners at the top reminding you of this. There are billboards up around town, and both stations have been airing promos describing the change.
The Pioneer Press helpfully ran a story about this today:
When you fumble for your remote Sunday morning to watch the Vikings' season opener against the Chicago Bears, you'll find that what once had the NFL (Channel 29) is now UPN and has... "Smackdown."And what was once UPN (Channel 9 and dead on Sundays) is now Fox and has the football game, "The Simpsons," "24" and "Temptation Island." The switch occurs at 9 a.m. In theory, this should be simple. Fox goes to 9, UPN goes to 29.
The swap was made inevitable a year ago when Fox's parent company, News Corp., traded stations in San Antonio, Texas, and Salt Lake City to Clear Channel Inc. for WFTC-TV, Channel 29, pairing it with KMSP-TV, Channel 9, which it acquired from Chris-Craft.
Given KMSP's better transmitter placement and more established presence in the Twin Cities, it was logical to flip the two affiliations and use the Fox network's meatier prime-time lineup as a platform to build a fully competitive local news operation with combined newsrooms. The change was even more logical when you consider the generally pathetic underperformance of most UPN prime-time programming.
So, like most confusing and frustrating things in life, this is caused by huge corporations. Does anyone need another reason to hate Clear Channel? Didn't think so.
Later, I'll be explaining why the Chicago Bears are playing "home games" in beautiful Champaign, Illinois.
On second thought, no I won't.
Comments
screw buffy...can you tape that bears game for me?
Posted by: drublood | September 7, 2002 9:40 PM
Dru, seeing as my antenna-based reception for both channels sucks, you probably don't want that.
You wouldn't be able to tell which team was which, for one thing. The color tends to fade in and out, and there are ghostly half-images from the adjoining station. . .
Posted by: Aaron | September 8, 2002 6:48 AM
Oh I saw the Bears game. It was actually better than hoped for with them playing the Vikings.
Posted by: Michelle | September 8, 2002 5:46 PM
who won?
Posted by: drublood | September 8, 2002 6:12 PM
Amazingly enough, da Bears.
This means sad Minnesotans, so that's two reasons to be happy.
Posted by: Aaron | September 8, 2002 7:45 PM
Aw man, that's nothing. Six weeks ago comcast decided to shuffle **ALL** the channels late one Saturday night with **NO** notice. It was mighty surreal for awhile when I woke up the next morning, put on SPEED channel to watch my F-1 race, only to see home shopping. A serious WTF?!? moment.
We still haven't figured out where all the channels are. Thank god for TIVO.
Posted by: scott | September 9, 2002 8:28 AM
What do you mean "amazingly enough, the Bears"? Its not like the Vikings are some great obstacle in their or anyone's road this year.
Posted by: Lord Shagariffic | September 9, 2002 10:30 AM
Lord Shagariffic, you're real popular with the Minnesotans at work today, ain't'cha?
Fuckers.
I turned the game off at the end of the half, when the Bears were down and working hard to stay that way.
Posted by: Aaron | September 9, 2002 11:43 AM