More like the "Make Money Movie"

One of my many intelligent and with-it readers, Suzanne Hayes, noticed that the local NBC affiliate, KSHB-TV, is pre-empting two hours of network programming Wednesday night, the last night before sweeps, for a very special movie presentation, "Major League," starring Charlie Sheen (at right in glasses, for the six of you who haven't seen the 1989 classic).

You don't have to be a industry specialist to know what's going on here.  KSHB is putting on a 105-minute movie in a two-hour time slot so that it can sell 50 campaign spots to politicians in Kansas and Missouri six days before the election.

In the old days, what KSHB is doing would be called a "make-good movie." Stations, especially low rated ones, would need to run them from time to time to appease their advertisers whose  commercials didn't reach the promised number of viewers.  Make goods are part of every medium, but only TV broadcasters have to literally shoehorn new ones in because they work with a finite amount of ad space. And nearly all of the most desirable commercial time is reserved for the networks to sell to their sponsors.

Knowing this, every network allows affiliates to pre-empt a certain number of hours a year.  KSHB gets eight hours, which strikes me as kind of stingy. Those of you who read Ken Auletta's brilliant book about the TV industry, Three Blind Mice, may recall the author visiting Kansas City for the express purpose of profiling the then-general manager of KCTV, whose claim to fame was that his station pre-empted more hours of network programming than any other CBS affiliate in the country.

KSHB doesn't have it so easy because, when it went from a Fox station to an NBC affiliate in the 1990s, ownership was in no position to negotiate.

Nowadays, though, one might argue NBC is the one that has to lump it.  I mean, can you name the programs airing at 8 and 9 p.m. Central time Wednesday night that KSHB will be pre-empting?  (Hint: Neither show involves actors, unless you count Caroline Rhea.)