Will ABC show skating in D.C. today?

[donnamarie]

A friend just called; she heard on the news last night that there's been a program change for the DC area and that ABC will show the movie "A Bug's Life" instead. But that the skating will be shown in Baltimore on channel 2 (which I don't get).

Looking on ABC's (local WJLA) webpage, they show "A Bug's Life" at 1:00.

We tried to call them, but the local number won't even let us leave a voicemail today. It just keeps repeating the same message over and over. (Perhaps they anticipate some angry phone calls today?)

I guess we will find out at 1:00. I know that during the skating recently they advertised the skating today. WHY would WJLA not show us the skating today, to show a dumb repeat of a movie instead? I can't even imagine a reason for that. Has anyone else heard anything? Arrrr.

[donnamarie]

After doing a little research I see that the movie A Bug's Life is being shown nationally at 7:00 tonight. Here in D.C., there is a Redskins game at that time. So rather than disappoint those local fans who hope to see A Bug's Life (which they can rent on video any time they want to, and which has probably been on tv already) they have moved A Bug's Life to 1:00 and pre-empted the skating.

This skating event is a first-time event, which has been advertised by ABC as being on today. This isn't something that we can run over to the video store and rent. What a slap in the face to skating fans. But then again, par for the course. Of course, skating is not important and is of no value. Sigh.

[donnamarie]

In the past when this has happened here, WJLA has shown Skate America in the middle of the night, to placate angry skating fans. Today they don't seem to be accepting phone calls or even voice mails. But you can email them at this place if you want to:

http://www.wjla.com/contact.hrb

[JT]

This is infuriating! Skating fans get no respect :( I can't believe after advertising this competition for weeks, WJLA chose instead to show some old movie that has been out for years.

You bet I gave them a piece of my mind!

[donnamarie]

We can call this number (the news desk) and bug them

703-236-9555

The woman says she doesn't know anything about it, but if there were a lot of calls, she might get more interested and find out something.

[adrianchew]

Topic moved to TV Alerts. ~adrianchew~

[A.H.Black]

I posted this on the other threads. I just wanted to encourage all of you to really get involved to help changed this situation.

Go after your local station. We had a five year battle with our local station but they finally learned. If they keep giving you a hassle, find out who your affiliated rep is at ABC. They probably don't know that skating got bumped or that so many people are upset. If you talk to them, things will change over time. Believe me - ABC wants ABC programming to be broadcast.

Your next project needs to be to contact your local station early in the week concerning the following week's programming. If they plan to pre-empt, start screaming early. At one point we even went after the advertisers - both of figure skating (to let them know we wanted to see it) and of the program broadcast instead of skating (to let them know that the program they sposored was pre-empting a program we wanted to see). You can make a difference - Go after it

Once we got the Ladies finals of Worlds pre-empted for a high school basketball game!

[donnamarie]

Thanks A.H. It is depressing.