The rules described above generally don’t apply to the preseason. * While there are few preseason games on network television, the rights to the majority of preseason games are sold by the teams to stations of their choosing. Again, we do not have local control over these decisions. * FOX and the NFL may opt to change FOX31 Denver’s broadcast away from “blowout” games to more competitive games being played at the same time.

Thursday and Monday night games, however, do not change. Games may also move between the early and late doubleheader slots. With the exception of games that FOX and CBS are allowed to protect, for the last seven weeks of the year, the NFL may decide to change games to give NBC a more attractive game in its Sunday night time slot. * The local stations have no control over the flexible scheduling. Those networks put the games up for bids to the local stations for the right to air them. * Local fans are guaranteed to see all of the Broncos games on local broadcast stations, even if they are on cable (ESPN or the NFL Network). The only exception to this is Week 17, when both networks get two games because of playoff implications. The same rule applies that on a CBS doubleheader week, KCNC in Denver can’t air a different game during a Broncos home game on FOX31 Denver. * Even if it is a FOX doubleheader Sunday, FOX31 Denver can’t air a game at the same time as a Broncos home game. * For non-prime-time games between teams in different conferences, the network of the visiting team gets the rights. We can request a change, but the network doesn’t have to grant it. This means we usually get AFC West or NFC North games, because of a displayed interested our region has shown for those games. * FOX assigns us the other games, based on regional interest or national importance. The upshot here: The on-air promos don’t necessarily translate to games on air for FOX31 Denver. It’s not our choice - it’s league and network rules. FOX has at least one late game each week because of the west coast home NFC games in Arizona, Seattle and San Francisco, but that doesn’t mean we can always air them. Sometimes we can air two, sometimes we can’t. The networks (generally) alternate doubleheader weeks. slots does not mean we can air two games every week. * Just because FOX has games in both the 11 a.m. If we have a post-game show, it’s not replacing a game that’s available to us. * Because we are the home market station for the Denver Broncos, if a Broncos game is being broadcast by FOX, we are guaranteed to show it on FOX31 Denver. FOX31 Denver) have little control in the process – and are sometimes at the mercy of the decisions made on-the-fly by the network. * The rules about what games local TV stations are allowed to air are crafted between the NFL and networks which carry the games (FOX, CBS, NBC, ESPN and NFL Network).

Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.ĭENVER - Viewers often write to us asking why we didn’t air the NFL game they were hoping to see, or why we did not air a game that was advertised in a prior FOX broadcast.īrian Kerhin, the assignment manager at a fellow FOX affiliate in Green Bay, Wisc., WLUK-TV, has written a comprehensive explanation as to why local TV stations typically have little to no say in the matter.

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated.

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