After booting two matches to the midnight hour last weekend, WSET has pledged to air the rest of ABC's World Cup soccer broadcasts live.

The ABC affiliate had planned to show Sunday's Japan-Croatia match on same-day tape at midnight but will instead air it live at 9 a.m.

WSET showed only one of ABC's three World Cup broadcasts live last weekend. WSET opted to televise ABC's Saturday morning children's shows instead of the 9 a.m. England-Paraguay match last Saturday. WSET showed the match at 12.30 a.m. instead.

"You're only allowed a limited number of movements of children's programming" by the FCC, WSET president Randy Smith said. "With what we planned to move with World Cup soccer and what we planned to move with golf, we were at our limit.

"We would rather carry World Cup. We have absolutely zero incentive to carry children's programming other than we have to. ... We could choose to [bump World Cup] either the first Saturday or any other Saturday the World Cup was on. Our feeling was, the earlier the better."

Very few ABC affiliates did not show all the matches live last weekend, according to an ABC/ESPN spokesman.

The Lynchburg-based station aired Rev. Jerry Falwell's Lynchburg-based "Old Time Gospel Hour" at 11 a.m. last Sunday instead of the Mexico-Iran match at 11:30 a.m. WSET instead showed the match at midnight.

"When you're working with somebody to negotiate changes in a contract that's already existing, sometimes you get everything that you want and sometimes you don't," Smith said.

Smith said ABC wouldn't let WSET move the two affected matches last weekend to one of its digital channels. He said ABC also wouldn't let his station join the Mexico-Iran match in progress at noon last Sunday.

Smith said his station received complaints about not airing the matches live. Smith said all of ABC's remaining World Cup broadcasts will air live.

"It's a huge accomplishment to be able to move that much programming that's under contracts," Smith said.

In order to show the Japan-Croatia match at 9 a.m. Sunday and the Brazil-Australia match at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, WSET will pre-empt Rev. Robert Schuller's "Hour of Power" at 10 a.m. and Falwell's program.

WDBJ adds Tech shows

Virginia Tech's weekly TV highlights show is moving from WSLS to WDBJ. The rebroadcasts of Tech home football games are also moving to WDBJ.

WDBJ will air "Virginia Tech Sports Today" at 11 a.m. Sundays beginning this August. The half-hour highlights show will be repeated several times during the week on WDBJ's digital channel. WDBJ will also produce the show, which will air on seven Virginia stations, three North Carolina stations and on CSN.

WSLS wanted to keep the show, said Rick Barakat, assistant vice president and general manager of ISP Sports, the media rights holder for Tech athletics.

But WDBJ made an aggressive push for the program, said Barakat. ISP decided to switch because WDBJ offered to also carry the "Hokie PlayBack" rebroadcasts; already bought stadium signage at Tech from ISP; and had a digital channel.

Coaches' TV shows usually aren't big ratings-grabbers, so why did WDBJ want the show?

"With a little promotional effort from this television station, that programming can get a lot better spotlight," WDBJ program director Mike Bell said. "Beyond that, just to be associated with Tech in any sort of venture these days is a good idea."

This will be the third year Tech has produced rebroadcasts of its home football games. In 2004, WDBJ's digital channel was the only outlet to air them.

Last fall, "Hokie PlayBack" aired on CSN and on stations around the state, including WDRL.

This year, the only outlets for "Hokie PlayBack" will be CSN, WDBJ and WDBJ's digital channel. CSN will air the rebroadcasts at 12:30 p.m. Sundays. WDBJ will air them at 11:35 p.m. Sundays, and the WDBJ digital channel will show them Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at 11 p.m.

"With the development of second channels for TV stations, you have to find some sort of [programs] to put on them," Bell said. "Unless it's something like 'Seinfeld,' you're just showing repeats to fill up the time. You have to find some niche programming. These are the type of things that are instantly recognizable and people would watch."

Last fall, "Hokie PlayBack" featured fresh musings from play-by-play announcer Greg Roberts and analyst Mike O'Cain, who joined football coach Frank Beamer's staff this year. This year, "Hokie PlayBack" will match the video with what Bill Roth and Mike Burnop said on the radio broadcasts of the games.