Meaning of "preempt" in television

[chicken]

"The WB will preempt Smallville and Angel on Wednesday, Nov. 26 to show Josie and the Pussycats, the Archie Comics-based movie starring Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosario Dawson, Tara Reid, Alan Cumming and Parker Posey." -- from a link to some news site from whedonesque

What does "preempt" mean? Does that mean they won't show Angel at all that week, or does it means they'll show it on a different day ... or ... or ... ? I admit I've never really known what that word meant in a television context. In other contexts, yes ... as in, George Bush's attack on Iraq was preemptive.

Comments

[aea]

The WB needs a good kick in the frog's balls.

[keever.livejournal.com]

I hadn't read that yet, but it doesn't surprise me.

It won't be on at all that week. Sweeps will be over by then, and that does tend to be when they show the first rerun or just preempt; I imagine that during that week, they sit back and look at sweeps ratings and work on resetting their advertising prices for future new episodes.

Plus, that's one of the biggest travel nights of the year. They expect people to be away from the TV that night, so they certainly wouldn't want to air a new episode when it would get unnaturally low ratings.

So, the good thing is that this has nothing to do with the network's confidence in the show(s).

[chicken-cem.livejournal.com]

OK, so it really has a different linguistic thingy (haha, thingy, inarticulate me) going on in this usage of the word than in the Iraq example I gave.

It is good to know that it means they bear no malice towards the show.

And I suppose I should have looked it up.

Television is number three-ish (but not quite) and War stuff is number two-ish, but not quite. ???

m-w.com:

1 : to acquire (as land) by preemption
2 : to seize upon to the exclusion of others : take for oneself
3 : to replace with something considered to be of greater value or priority : take precedence over

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OK, so it really has a different linguistic thingy (haha, thingy, inarticulate me) going on in this usage of the word than in the Iraq example I gave.

It is good to know that it means they bear no malice towards the show.

And I suppose I should have looked it up.

Television is number three-ish (but not quite) and War stuff is number two-ish, but not quite. ???

m-w.com:

1 : to acquire (as land) by preemption
2 : to seize upon to the exclusion of others : take for oneself <the movement was then preempted by a lunatic fringe>
3 : to replace with something considered to be of greater value or priority : take precedence over <the program did not appear, having been preempted by a baseball game -- Robert MacNeil>
4 : to gain a commanding or preeminent place in
5 : to prevent from happening or taking place : FORESTALL,