You'd think the more viewers the better for the Miami Heat's welcome ceremony this evening for LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh at the American Airlines Arena. But when local ABC affiliate WPLG decided to preempt Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy and Wife Swap to instead show the party inside live, the Heat pulled the plug.
At 8:03, anchor Laurie Jennings promised viewers, "We have this whole hour planned out for you, we have Calvin Hughes and Will Manso inside, sports reporter Andrea Brody outside, along with a team of reporters Janine Stanwood, Rob Schmitt, Jen Herrera, Neki Mohan, we have it all covered for you as 10,000 fans pack the American Airlines arena for a king's welcome."
But at 8:18, just 15 minutes later, Jennings announced, "Right now we're learning from the Heat that they want to keep this all inside. We are not going to be able to share with our viewers what's happening inside, only on the big jumbotron, so we're going to break away and join Wife Swap in progress."
WPLG apologized to viewers on its Facebook page, saying, "Miami Heat pulled the plug on our show... decided we couldn't air it live.. could only videotape it... sorry we had to bail out... we're now only allowed to get video for the 11pm news.."
They then notified viewers on Facebook that SunSports was still broadcasting the ceremony. No word yet on why the Heat decided to cut off a local station, but let Fox Sports Florida/SunSports and ESPN2 keep broadcasting live.
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