Having decimated live sports, the coronavirus pandemic has moved onto Pardon the Interruption.
ESPN will not broadcast its Washington DC-based daytime talk shows — Pardon the Interruption, Around the Horn, Highly Questionable and High Noon — over the next week, according to a schedule published by ESPN Sunday. While only PTI originates from DC, all four shows are run out of Rydholm Projects’ Washington DC studio.
The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch was first to report Sunday that ESPN was discontinuing its DC-based talk shows for the time being.
It was not immediately clear how long the shows would remain off the air. They will be replaced this week by a number of studio programs, including NFL Live, SportsCenter and The Jump.
The schedule shift is just the latest ripple of the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in the suspension or cancellation of all sporting events outside of the UFC and PBA bowling.
In addition to taking PTI off the air, ESPN will also discontinue its early morning SportsCenter, per Deitsch.
Beyond ESPN, Fox Sports announced last week that its daytime shows will not air through at least this Friday.
The last time sports went dark due to world events was in the days after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington. At that time, PTI was still a month away from debuting and there was little else in the way of sports talk on television. ESPN’s The Sports Reporters did not miss a week.
CNN did cancel its sports show Sports Tonight in the aftermath of 9/11.
[News from ESPN PR 3.15, Richard Deitsch/Twitter 3.15, Fox Sports/Twitter 3.13]
