No Skate America on tv for D.C. area

[donnamarie]

Apparently the local ABC station - WJLA - will not show Skate America today (Saturday) but will show A Bug's Life instead. There is a Redskins game on tonight, which pre-empts A Bug's Life. So they have moved A Bug's Life to 1:00, pre-empting skating.

Never mind that people can rent A Bug's Life at the video store, and that it has been out for years. Never mind that the people who expect to see A Bug's Life at 7:00 tonight will not even know that it is on at 1:00 instead, so it's a meaningless gesture to move it (unless they want to get paid from Disney I suppose).

The local WJLA phone number isn't answering today and you can't even leave a voicemail. I can't help thinking they are trying to avoid the phone calls they know are coming.

WJLA has done this in the past. When they received lots of phone calls, they ended up showing Skate America in the middle of the night.

We can't call them but we can email them at:

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

Your support is greatly appreciated.

(I put this on this board because many people will not go to the Skate America boards because they don't want to be spoiled. We could really use some support to email WJLA. Thanks.)

[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.

[danibellerika]

thanks for letting me know this. I think I have an alternate ABC station to watch it on though. If you can get WMAR it will be on there. But still, that's no excuse.

OMG, when I turned to WMAR, I thought that they were going to show some cooking show because it's commercial promo was so long. But it's on now, and I'm off to watch!

[manleywoman]

*******s. I actually stayed home today specifically to watch SA. Grrr.....

[Tapper]

I sent them three emails _ one to programming, one to sports and one to ... oh, I don't even remember now. I'm so irritated. I also posted this info on the Skate America discussion board, not knowing this was here. Sorry for the duplication. I will try the phone number and see if I get any response from the woman - thanks for leaving it. I also tried the number in the phone book but only got the busy signal...

Talk about a disappointment...

[RustyTx]

I am so upset with ABC.......I have been waiting all morning to watch Skate America today. I have called the local station here and all I got were voice mails and they don't answer your emails until Monday. I know this is football season, but there are some of us that watch other sports than football. I sure hope they call me back and give me an explaination on why they did not show it.:twisted:

[A.H.Black]

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!

[peachstatesk8er]

Wow, at least ya'll got A Bug's Life, we got a senate debate and the very boring This Week with George Stephanopoulos. I called the local ABC station and let them have it big time. The sports desk let me leave a message for the programming dept. It made me feel better. I bet they bump next weeks coverage of Skate Canada as well. If they do.....well.....it won't be pretty. Grrrrrrrr ABC is EVILLE!!!

[A.H.Black]

Peach - it's not ABC. It's your local station. Get on them now about next week. Stay on them. You can make a difference.

I promise - ABC wants you to see the skating. Use them as your ally.

[RustyTx]

I just got a call from the Programming department at my local ABC network and they explained to me that they had to move todays SA to later tonight (Midnight) since they didn't show all the cartoons on Saturday. I thought that was a crock. He told me that since they had a double header College football game on Saturday they had to cut the cartoons short and they had to show the cut cartoons on Sunday so they cut out SA. So, if you are in the Texas (central) area, you might want to set your VCRs or alarm clocks to watch it later tonight. I think he said it was going to be either 12:00 am or 12:30 am. I also asked him about the Exhibition show from SA but he did not show anything on his schedule about it so it might not be shown on ABC. He did suggest checking with ESPN. I hope this helps someone. I know I will be up late tonight. :D

Oh yea....he also warned me that this might happen again next week since they will have a double header College football again.

[peachstatesk8er]

A.H.Black, yeah I know it's not the network itself. It's the local affiliate that is eville. I already put in a call about Skate Canada. They had no answer on whether or not they'll be showing SC. :( I'm planning on calling and calling til I get an answer. If they bump it, by golly I expect a tape of both SA and SC. Then I want to know why the FCC makes it impossible to pay to get national networks coverage if you have a local affiliate. That's BS IMO. If my local affiliate is crap, ABC needs to know why I never watch their station. I'm working on it. :) They messed with the wrong skating fan 'cuz once I start, I won't let up til I get what I want.