As “General Hospital” kicked off Season 63 on Monday, September 8, two more affiliates joined the previously announced WCVB in changing the time slot for the long-running ABC daytime drama series in their local markets.
New Hampshire affiliate WMUR, which covers the outlying Manchester area, and WPBF in West Palm Beach, Florida, returned the soap opera to its former 3:00 p.m. ET time slot, which it held for more than 25 years before ABC ceded the time slot back to local stations in September 2012 in the hopes of launching “Katie,” the since-canceled and ratings challenged syndicated daytime talk show hosted by Katie Couric that ran for just two seasons and cost Disney, parent of ABC, $80 million to launch.
At WMUR, “General Hospital” now airs as the lead-in to the station’s “News 9 at Four,” with syndicated episodes of NBCUniversal’s “Dateline” airing at 2:00 p.m. Meanwhile, at WPBF, “Tamron Hall” has moved to 2:00 p.m., followed by “General Hospital” and the station’s “WPBF 25 News at 4:00 p.m.” telecast.
Along with Boston affiliate WCVB, the stations are all owned by Heart Television, leaving one to wonder if the station group is testing the waters to see if it might also move the soap back to its former time slot on other ABC stations it owns, a likely possibility since stations always seek to place their strongest performing shows in time slots that serve as better lead-ins to their highly rated local newscasts.
While on the national level, “General Hospital” continues to air at 2:00 p.m. ET/1:00 p.m. PT, the time slot switch by the three Hearst Television stations now sees 11 ABC stations in total that have moved the show back to 3:00 p.m. ET/2:00 p.m. PT.
In September 2014, seven of the eight ABC Owned Television Stations, including WABC in New York, KABC in Los Angeles, WLS in Chicago, WPVI in Philadelphia, KGO in San Francisco, KTRK in Houston, and WTVD in Raleigh-Durham, made the switch. Meanwhile, KSAT in San Antonio was the sole non-ABC-owned station to also make the switch back at the time.
Boston is the ninth-largest television market in the United States according to Nielsen’s Designated Market Areas (DMAs) report. The area also covers Southern New Hampshire, with WMUR serving as an outlying area of the market.
West Palm Beach ranks #39 (WPBF) on the DMA list, while New York is #1 (WABC), followed by #2 Los Angeles (KABC), #3 Chicago (WLS), #5 Philadelphia (WPVI), #6 Houston (KTRK), #10 San Francisco (KGO) and #22 Raleigh-Durham (WTVD). San Antonio (KSAT) ranks 31st.
