Why do network affiliates have the right to pull programming?

[Yong Fang]

From this article:

http://tv.yahoo.com/news/utah-nbc-af...183856383.html

The NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City, Utah has decided not to air an NBC show called "Hannibal", the second show they are censoring after a sitcom called "The New Normal".

My question is, why does the affiliate have the right to unilaterally take off programming from the network? It has always seemed to me that the affiliates are like franchises to the parent network.

If I owned a McDonalds somewhere in the USA, I am tied to an agreement with the company to sell their products. The franchise cannot unilaterally say "We will no longer sell Big Macs here.", or sell additional products. Why aren't the affiliates held to the same standard?

This reminds me once in the 1990's when I was poor, renting a room and one of my only pleasures (besides the new internet) was watching TV. On Mondays, the CBS affiliate would show King of Queens, Raymond, and Becker. Some of my favorite shows.

The stupid CBS affiliate PRE-EMPTED these shows to have a fundraiser for some charity! Pre-empted as in, they were going to broadcast these shows AFTER Letterman! I was . (Again, around 1997, there was no DVR, internet like now, no Hulu, no real other source legal or otherwise to watch my programming).

I called the station angry and we ended up having a few choice words (on both ends). I ended up calling them morons for taking off several Top 10 shows for their local thing, something I am sure most people avoided that night. Imagine now, if you wanting to watch "Big Bang Theory" and it just wasn't on because of your affiliate.

A much older story is when my ABC affiliate in Memphis (as a child) refused to show the first several episodes of "Soap" replacing it with "Gomer Pyle USMC" (of all things, headlined by a gay actor that everyone knew was gay in 1968.) Soon however, my "Bible Belt" town had a fit and SOAP came back on (and was one of the best sitcoms of all time.) This was, 1978? In '78, most of us still had three channels, no internet, no DVD's, Netflix or whatever. 'Sorry, cannot watch this show because Bible thumpers are too dumb or too vouryistic (sic!) to turn off the television!

Note, your job as a network affiliate is to show network programming. If you do not like the shows, do not be an affiliate and let some other company step in!

The New Normal and Hannibal has no interest to me, but the Salt Lake City affiliate are a bunch of tools. But again, the wonderful thing about 2013 is that I do not need them to watch my programming. But it still annoys me no end when they do this, and do not understand why the national networks do not hold these affiliates to a tighter contract and no pre-emption of programming.

So why?

[Regulus]

Back when I was a kid there would be times a Station in the Detroit area would refuse to show something the network was showing. If I wanted to watch the show that was blacked out I would open my bedroom window, Attach a spool of wire to my TV's Antenna, then unreel the wire out the window and up a tree that was in my backyard that was about 75 feet tall. I could climb it up to approximately 60 feet. There I'd tie the other end of the wire to a Branch and wrap duct tape around it. In addition to pick up the Detroit Station I could pick up the Toledo Ohio Stations as well as a Stations in Lansing, Flint and Cleveland! Where there was a will there was a way! The only fly in the ointment was whenever a Thunderstorm was approaching. Every now and then I'd be watching something good and I'd hear a rumble, or one of my folks would be coming in and they say "William! Thunder!" and I would have to disconnect the wire and leave the end out in the middle of the yard. (Not once was the tree ever struck by lightning, but it was better to be safe than sorry).

Among the things pre-empted in Detroit by the local stations were:

The Entire First Season of Saturday Night Live (The Station replaced them with Old Movies.)

The Entire First Season of CHIPs (The Station thought this series would be lucky if it lasted 13 episodes and replaced it with some Talk Show.)

The Christmas Special The Little Drummer Boy (The Station decided it was "Politically Incorrect" because the Muslims didn't like it. (They showed some "Public Service" Show)

I just did what you (or anyone else) did whenever you wanted something but whoever provided that something refused to supply it. I just went and got it from another source!

[noveel]

they never pre-empt anything high rated, using morals as an excuse, stations can get more ad $ by pre-empting low rated shows with Matlock, stations risk losing viewers to Hulu or bittorent by doing this, but it probably actually makes the station look better in places like Salt Like City, the NBC affiliate in Houston delayed Conan way past midnight for years until NBC anointed him to replace Leno (the first time)

[MrCleveland]

Hell yes...

But it wasn't because of the show it was...it was because of the affiliate wasn't owned by the company!

And that is...WEWS, Cleveland's ABC Affiliate! They will preempt "AFV" (Even when it's new) for a special, that would piss me off...luckily I now have Hulu and Netflix so that if "AFV" gets preempted again...I'll catch it the next day.

WEWS isn't owned by Disney, it's owned by Scripps who also owns The Food Network. They'll even have the news be preempted for hours if something news-breaking is happening, like a thunderstorm in Akron or a raid in Mentor. (Okay, but...I DON'T ****ING LIVE DOWN THERE)!

But I'll give WEWS this though....