CBS’ Boston Duop Swaps Shows

CBS Television Distribution’s Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! are swapping places with CTD’s The Insider and Entertainment Tonight on CBS-owned duopoly WBZ/WSBK Boston, the nation’s seventh largest media market.

Wheel and Jeopardy!, both of which are produced by Sony, will air from 7 to 8 p.m. ET on WBZ, leading out of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and into CBS’ primetime. Insider and ET will air from 7 to 8 p.m. on WSBK leading out of off-net sitcoms and into NBC Universal’s Law & Order: SVU, which airs at 8 p.m.

“We’re just marrying up like with like,” says Ed Piette, the stations’ president and general manager. “More Wheel and Jeopardy! viewers watch WBZ, while WSBK has a younger skew that appeals to Insider/ET viewers.”

Piette worked closely with CBS Television Distribution, which distributes all four shows, before swapping the programs, he says. The shows will change stations starting Monday, Oct. 19.

CTD had no comment.

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.