April 04--The Chicago TV broadcast of the Cubs vs. the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday afternoon may have fans of the quiz show "Jeopardy!" asking the question: Where the heck is Alex Trebek?
The answer: Airing at 3:10 a.m. Thursday.
The 1:20 p.m. Cubs game will run on ABC-owned WLS-Ch.7, a new broadcast partner this season, bumping "Jeopardy!" and other popular afternoon shows into the wee hours. It is the first of seven such weekday programming disruptions this summer, with the balance of the station's 24-game Cubs schedule airing on weekends and evenings.
For fans of the displaced programs who can't stay up all night waiting for Final Jeopardy, there are two viable options: Set your alarms or set your DVRs.
The ABC7 lineup changes for afternoon Cubs games are as follows:
"General Hospital," which normally airs from 2 to 3 p.m., will move to 2:10 a.m. "Inside Edition" will vacate its 3 p.m. slot, but will keep its regularly scheduled rerun at 1:05 a.m. Normally scheduled for 3:30 p.m., "Jeopardy!" will close out the local overnight block, followed by a truncated version of ABC's "World News Now" at 3:40 a.m.
Rachael Ray's syndicated talk show, which normally airs from 1 to 2 p.m., will be benched on game days.
The longtime television home of the Cubs, Tribune Media's WGN-Ch.9, will air 40 games this season, with five games on Fox-owned WPWR-Ch. 50. No Cubs games will air on WGN America, which is converting from a superstation to a national cable channel.
The bulk of the Cubs schedule will be on Comcast SportsNet Chicago.
rchannick@tribpub.com
