Yesterday I was going to write something brief about what I’ve cleared off my PVR this week so far, focusing on my disappointment in the Grey’s Anatomy season premiere. I thought it went from the overwrought season finale to the, er, underwrought glossing-over of Izzy’s grief, and the Chief’s marital troubles, and Meredith’s love triangle. I’m usually multitasking while watching the show (translation: not paying full attention), but even so, it seemed disjointed.
But then I got the memo (literally – none of the networks actually target news releases to the TV, Eh? site, so I get everything they send out, applicable or not). Turns out, I hadn’t seen the season premiere, but the second episode of the season, because of a glitch with the satellite feed provided to CTV.
The news today is full of stories quoting fans vilifying CTV, and while it’s hard to have sympathy for a corporate entity, it wasn’t actually their fault – a fact that’s buried in some of the articles. My media relations colleagues are shocked that journalists might run with the sensational, bad-guy story instead of the balanced facts.
I do think it’s a mistake for them to air the premiere at its usual time next Thursday, though. They could placate fans by trying to schedule it earlier, though I suppose they’re worried about cannibalizing their ratings for the regular timeslot. It’s jarring to see a serialized show in a jumbled-up order, but there’s nothing they can do to change the fact that most Canadians will for these two episodes. There is something they could do to be a little more apologetic, though.
There’s something in all this that smells bad – and has to do with the simulcast issue…the Can networks get feeds, but then move around to fit them into their already loaded schedule of US shows, even if it means on different nights, or now they apparently can accidentally mix them up – and the audience just has to accept it…smelly
Yeah, it happened to Rock Star, too, when Global started airing the wrong feed (2 hour version, then switched to the proper 1 hour version), so some viewers missed a chunk. I don’t have a problem with Canadian networks moving the shows around – gives us Studio 60 early, plus I don’t know how they could possibly coordinate their schedules to the US networks – but you’d think the feed thing wouldn’t be so susceptible to error. They shouldn’t have had access to the second episode, though – that was a screw up on the feeder’s end. Seems unfair to blame CTV.
I was surprised that the error could happen. Surely ABC or someone has some sort of control over what they send out to the international rights holders.
It was if anything worse for someone watching the ABC channel on cable, at least in my market (Saskatoon). As usual, Shaw Cable substituted in the CTV feed but between five and ten minutes in someone realised that the programs that ABC and CTV were showing were different and ended the substitution just after Burke’s parents came into his room. Very confusing, a confusion exemplified by Meredith’s panties, which were on the bulletin board at the start of what I saw but were stuck up there by Addison at the end.
That is worse, Brent. At least the episode itself made sense for those of us who saw the entire 2nd one. I thought it was strange that the Pacific time zone, where I am, wasn’t corrected, too – seems they might have noticed after the Eastern zone got screwed up.