[smacktoward]

Heidi also became infamous here in the US in 1968, when a TV broadcast version of it pre-empted the end of a close football game, which went down in history as "the Heidi game." The furor that resulted led to changes in the way the TV networks managed their operations. The full story is at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game.

[saghm]

My favorite part about this story is that they would have actually let the football game keep running if so many people hadn't been calling in about it:

> NBC executives had originally ordered that Heidi begin at 7:00 p.m. EST, but then decided to allow the game to air to its conclusion. However, communicating this revised plan to the technicians running NBC's master control proved impossible – as 7 p.m. approached, NBC's switchboards were jammed by viewers phoning to inquire about the night's schedule, preventing the planned change from being communicated.