Bush Address Shakes Up Thursday Primetime
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) A planned TV address from President Bush has caused several networks to shuffle their schedules for Thursday night (Sept. 15).
The White House requested TV time from networks Tuesday so that Bush could speak to the nation about Hurricane Katrina and the ongoing recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast region. All of the Big Four broadcast networks, along with cable news outlets, will carry the speech at 9 p.m. ET Thursday. It’s expected to last about 30 minutes.
NBC, which had reruns scheduled for the night, will simply pre-empt one episode of “Scrubs” to accommodate the address on the East Coast (viewers out West will see what was previously scheduled). ABC, CBS and FOX, however, will all rearrange their schedules somewhat.
ABC had scheduled a two-hour season premiere of its newsmagazine “Primetime” for Thursday, featuring a story on stepparent-stepchild relationships from Diane Sawyer. Instead it will devote the entire night to news coverage of Katrina, with two hours of “Primetime” bookending Bush’s address follow-up analysis. Out West, viewers will see fill-in programming at 8 p.m. and the two hours of “Primetime” starting at 9.
The “Primetime” season premiere will move back a week, to Thursday, Sept. 22, and be shortened to 90 minutes to make room for the “Dancing with the Stars: Dance-Off” results show.
FOX is delaying the second episode of “Reunion” until next week, where it will have to square off against the season premieres of “CSI” and “The Apprentice.” A repeat of “The War at Home” premiere will follow Bush’s address. The network had also planned to show the “Reunion” episode again Friday; instead, it will repeat last week’s premiere.
CBS has bumped a repeat of the two-hour “CSI” season finale from Thursday to Wednesday, Sept. 21. That, in turn, forces the second-season premiere of “CSI: NY” back to Wednesday, Sept. 28.
Two different repeats of “CSI” will air following Bush’s address (and at 9 and 10 p.m. Pacific time), pushing affiliates’ local newscasts back from their normal time in the eastern part of the country.
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