New NFL policy could affect Eastern/Central time zone broadcasts

[That Don Guy]

The NFL announced that, when a network has a national doubleheader, the "late games" will now start at 4:25 Eastern instead of 4:15.

This increases the chance that one or more episodes of The Simpsons will be delayed by a few minutes in the Eastern and Central time zones.

In theory, communism works this could even mean an episode gets pre-empted, if a game runs until 8:30 Eastern and Fox decides it doesn't want to piss off its affiliates by having their 10 PM news shows start at 10:30. (Actually, the more likely result would be that Bob's Burgers would be pre-empted that night, but you never know.)

[Oh, that's raspberry!]

I think we only had 1 Football delay last season. Wonder how we'll do this year...

[biffwestwood]

There hasn't been a Simpsons episode yet in which FOX either pre-empted or joined-in-progress an episode on it's original airdate but with the reduced salaries everyone is taking, it could be possible since FOX could more easily afford to start abusing the episode airings.

We know the season premier will be on Sep. 30th and the second episode will most likely air on Oct. 7th. Then the next three Sundays will have no new episodes due to post season baseball. The third episode will probably be Treehouse of Horror XXIII that will air on Nov. 4th.

First they targeted Futurama with this problem; then when that was gone it was King of the Hill that got marked until The Cleveland Show premiered.

My solution is that they should air Bob's Burgers in the Simpson's time slot and then air The Simpsons but FOX won't do that.

I not watching any new episodes because Lisa Goes Gaga was the last straw out of an overall disappointing season 23 so even if a new episode gets pre-empted or joined-in-progress from an overlong football game, I really don't care. That Maggie Simpson short at the beginning of the new Ice Age film will be the first "new Simpsons material" I will not see. (I haven't even seen the first three Ice Age films either so it is no huge loss)

[Lionheart]

@biffwestwood They interrupted the west coast feed of "The Real Housewives of Fat Tony" because of Osama Bin Laden getting killed. That seemed reasonable to me.

[biffwestwood]

@biffwestwood They interrupted the west coast feed of "The Real Housewives of Fat Tony" because of Osama Bin Laden getting killed. That seemed reasonable to me.

That's different because the episode originally started on time