Letter to local paper & CBS re: 60 min.

[eissa]

Here's a letter that will be (hopefully) printed in the Sacramento Bee, as well as sent to CBS. Apologies if this topic has already been discussed.


Isn't it curious that KOVR 13, the local CBS affiliate owned by the notoriously right-wing Sinclair Broadcasting Group, chose to preempt 60 Minutes Wednesday just as an interview with Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena was to air?

It's bad enough that viewers are asked to stomach Sinclair VP Mark Hyman's regular, bilious parroting of GOP talking points disguised as news. What's worse is when loyal viewers of CBS programming in the Sacramento area are denied access to it whenever it violates Sinclair's narrow and distorted standards. If Sinclair doesn't want to be CBS' affiliate, I'm sure there are other local stations that would like to be part of the number one network.

I'm sure KOVR management will argue that the Billy Graham Crusade, which replaced 60 Minutes Wednesday on their schedule, best served the wants and needs of their viewing public. But just as House Republicans have argued that PBS is no longer necessary in a world filled with cable-television arts alternatives, I would suggest those in need of on-air religion turn to CBN or the Trinity network. Meanwhile, I'll get my news elsewhere, and watch my 60 Minutes on CBSNews.com.

[babylonsister]

1. Good for you! Pre-empted here in TX as well, and a lot

of other markets. This after Leslie Stahl complained on Hardball last night that no one was watching '60 Minutes'.

[Oeditpus Rex]

2. Very well written

BTW, you can also listen to 60 Minutes on KCBS 740 in SF.

Anyone know if other stations that pre-empted it are also Stinklair-owned?

[eissa]

3. Response from those bastards at Sinclair

My friend sent an e-mail similar to the one above to Sinclair. Here is the response:

Actually CBS told us to preempt that show when we scheduled Billy graham a few
months ago, as they did to any of their affiliates who air Billy Graham. They
only decided recently to put that story on this braodcast. As we do with any
network preemption, we aired the preempted show that night at 2:05am, putting
it in all the listings and running a visual crawl over the Billy Graham show
telling the viewers where to find it.