TOS Remastered

Trek Remastered A Hit In Chicago, A Miss In NYC

By Anthony Pascale ⋅ September 18, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Because Trek Remastered is syndicated the airtimes are based on the local broadcaster, with the show often being aired in the wee hours of the morning. Some stations are taking a different tack and Chicago’s WWME is a perfect example. Up until recently Star Trek Enterprise showed at 11 am on WCIU in Chicago, the nation’s third largest media market. When Star Trek Remastered was announced Weigel Broadcasting, who had the conract for Enteprise, took it as an opportunity. They decided to move the show to 6pm Saturdays and put it on WWME (also known as ‘MeTV‘) with a rerun on the following Sunday night at 11 pm.  "It is a much better time and a pefect fit for MeTV," says Sean Long Program Director for Weigel. MeTV almost exclusively shows reruns of classic TV shows and starting next week Trek will be preceeded by the classic scifi show Lost in Space. "We are really excited about the the show and especially the new effects," said Long. They were so excited about new Trek they issued a press release and have been heavily promoting the show (see previous story). "We expect better ratings for the show in its new slot," said Long. WWME are already happy with the results telling TrekMovie.com that their overnight ratings showing a 550% improvement for the timeslot (previously airing back to back episodes of Batman). "Enterprise never really found its audience, but the classic show is for everybody," said Long. WWME plan on continuing to promote the show and said they would even be interested in showing Trek in its uncut form if CBS made that available.

New York is a whole other story
In the nation’s largest media market Star Trek Remastered is truly in the graveyard. Like most cities the show has inherited Enterprise’s timeslot, but in New York that puts the show on at 3:35 a.m. Monday morning. And to add insult to injury, WNBC decided to run the show almost an hour early so anyone who had set their DVR or VCR to tape the show ended up with about 10 minutes of it. This was due to their being a football game scheduled for earlier which ends up shifting the whole late night schedule around based on the end time. Next week the show is supposed to air at 3:05 am Monday, but there is another football game scheduled to end at 11:30 pm the previous night so it again may effect the start time. Essentially New York Trekkies really have no idea when the show will air. In addition they do not provide any repeats. The program director for WNBC was not available for comment on Trek Remastered and its future on WNBC.

Chicago and New York represent how the show is being handled across the country. Unfortunately few markets are getting the special treatment Chicago is getting, but hopefully if the ratings deliver other stations may give Trek Remastered the attention it deserves (full ratings wont be out for two weeks). Another bright spot is that Washington DC is finally getting Trek Remastered, making it the last of the top 10 ten media markets. Broadcasting & Cable reports that WDCA will start airing the show on Sundays at 2pm. This brings up the coverage to 99% of the country with all of the top 50 markets. But viewers in New Jersey out of range of stations from neighboring states are still waiting.