As the sports world continues to postpone, suspend, or cancel activities in an effort to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the world of broadcasting is now also moving in that direction as well.
Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers suspended production on their late-night shows, for example, and today Fox Sports announced they’re suspending production on all of their daily FS1 programs.
FOX Sports statement on FS1 daily programming below.
Updated programming schedule for this weekend: https://t.co/dFWkLrD4XY pic.twitter.com/KwRW04wIKl
— FOX Sports PR (@FOXSportsPR) March 13, 2020
“Out of an abundnace of caution, we have made the decision to suspend production of our live FS1 daily studio shows through at least Friday, March 20. Our top priority is the health and safety of our employees. We will continue to monitor the situation and adjust accordingly.”
Obviously there aren’t many things to talk about in sports anyway, aside from further cancellations and speculating on the return of various sports. The new FS1 programming schedule they linked to features WWE SmackDown tonight (which will be produced from WWE’s Performance Center with no audience), NASCAR (still racing, but without fans), and bowling.
The debate shows are a tough enough watch when there’s actually sports happening, much less in this kind of environment, but it’s still surreal to see how quickly the world can change. Other networks may obviously follow suit as well.
About Jay Rigdon
Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.