this question has been bothering me for awhile, most especially now since my local station now airs preempt programming at 4am where Thriller is suppose to come on now i can't watch Thriller no more :( i was confused to find a repeat of the morning news on Thrillers timeslot. then they take the preempt programming off at 5am but it looks like that's the only preempt programming that airs.

So my question is what's the reason why some local stations preempt me-tv affiliates for?

Unfortunately the locals can preempt whatever they want. My Antenna TV affiliate airs stupid baseball games. There's enough sports on other channels, leave the good classic TV stations alone!

Yeah they all do this (why? Because they can!)--here in Indy, WTHR preempts COZI daily at 7 pm--for a Dr. Phil repeat (who needs that?), and at other miscellaneous times for infomercials or other local programming (repeats). WXIN used to preempt This TV to simulcast their entire morning news (cut into the middle of a movie--who cares?). Fortunately, the stations here seem to leave Antenna and MeTV alone.

I live in an area where I can receive 2 ME-TV and 2 Antenna-TV affiliates. If one preempts regularly scheduled programming I just switch to the other.

Antenna TV plays local news at 9PM here, when Three's company is supposed to be on! And Cozi TV plays some BS (It's something featuring local politicians or something) between 7-8 PM . I can't watch My favorite Martian!