History Main / NoHoperRepeat

** HGTV and Food Network left the air completely, showing only still screens for two days, knowing that nobody was in the mood to be instructed on anything.

* For the last few years, every MTV network (including VH1 and digital channels such as MTV Hits and VH1 Classic) has switched to a black screen directing viewers to MTV during the Video Music Awards. The same networks used to air their lousiest programming during the awards show, like ABC's [[AdoredByTheNetwork run-into-the-ground]] TV movie ''The Jacksons: An American Dream''. One year, MTV2 showed a split-screen simulcast, with the official MTV feed in one corner and three other "behind-the-scenes" cameras in the other boxes.

** During that episode, TVLand ran a card encouraging its viewers to turn to ''Seinfeld''. The same was done for ''EverybodyLovesRaymond''... two extremely successful comedies that TVLand expected to syndicate the nostalgic dickens out of in future years.

* Parodied on ''[[Series/LateNight Late Night With Conan O'Brien]]''; when the Winter Olympics were on Creator/{{CBS}} against his show, Conan decided that they could do pretty much anything they wanted because "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsSvQc9TqRs Nobody's Watching]]". Antics ensued, such as Conan and Andy smoking cigarettes, Conan revealing that he wore a Music/{{Hanson}} t-shirt under his shirt and tie and confessing [[TakeThat his hatred for the NBC bug in the corner of the screen]], Max Weinberg confessing that he murdered Bruce Springsteen's previous drummer (and a number of oehter people he didn't like). and [[Series/{{Today}} Al Roker]] stopping by to confess that he had no interest in being a weatherman.

* Parodied on ''[[Series/LateNight Late Night With Conan O'Brien]]''; when the Winter Olympics were on Creator/{{CBS}} against his show, Conan decided that they could do pretty much anything they wanted because "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsSvQc9TqRs Nobody's Watching]]". Antics ensued, such as Conan and Andy smoking cigarettes, Conan revealing that he wore a Hanson t-shirt under his shirt and tie and confessing [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall his hatred for the NBC bug in the corner of the screen]], Max Weinberg confessing that he murdered Bruce Springsteen's previous drummer (and a number of oehter people he didn't like). and [[Series/{{Today}} Al Roker]] stopping by to confess that he had no interest in being a weatherman.

* Parodied on ''[[Series/LateNight Late Night With Conan O'Brien]]''; when the Winter Olympics were on Creator/{{CBS}} against his show, Conan decided that they could do pretty much anything they wanted because "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsSvQc9TqRs Nobody's Watching]]". Antics ensued, such as Conan and Andy smoking cigarettes, Conan revealing that he wore a Hanson t-shirt under his shirt and tie, Max Weinberg confessing that he murdered Bruce Springsteen's previous drummer (and a number of oehter people he didn't like). and [[Series/{{Today}} Al Roker]] stopping by to confess that he had no interest in being a weatherman.

* Parodied on ''[[Series/LateNight LateNight With Conan O'Brien]]'' which, playing opposite the Olympics on Creator/{{CBS}}, ran a segment called "Nobody's Watching", which featured antics such as Conan and Andy smoking cigarettes, Conan revealing that he wore a Hanson t-shirt under his shirt and tie, and [[Series/{{Today}} Al Roker]] stopping by to confess that he hated being a weatherman.

* For the last few years, every time [[TheBeautifulGame football]] matches are broadcast, German network ''Pro7'' has put on a comedy marathon (''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', ''Series/TwoAndAHalfMen'', ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'', ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'', etc. depending on the current day of the week).

* During the 2008 Olympics, Fox8 (an Australian cable TV channel) aired almost non-stop ''{{Simpsons}}, WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy, WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill, WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' and ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episodes. It almost worked, until they ran out of ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episodes so they had to run repeats of the NoHoperRepeat during the extended NoHoperRepeat.
** During the 2004 Olympics, they just showed ''{{Simpsons}}'' episodes during the day. That's right, at least ''six hours'' of ''Simpsons'' episodes a ''day''.

** On the day of the attacks, Creator/{{MTV}} and its sister station Creator/VH1 did a national simulcast of coverage from NewYorkCity's Viacom-owned [[Creator/{{CBS}} WCBS-TV]], the only major English-language station still broadcasting in the City (they had a backup tower on the Empire State Building, unlike the other stations). For the following week, MTV aired a nonstop music video loop, consisting entirely of Music/DestinysChild's "Emotion", Music/NellyFurtado's "I'm Like a Bird", and Music/{{U2}}'s "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of".

** Likewise, in ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'', the first episode with Luanne's Manger Babies puppets has her getting airtime on Channel 86... opposite the Super Bowl, which puts Hank (cast as God) in a tough spot.

* In many local markets it was for many years assumed that either ''[[TheOprahWinfreyShow Oprah]]'' or ''JudgeJudy'' would win the 4pm weekday timeslot, so the other stations aired programs (like local news, sitcom reruns, or talk shows) with low ratings expectations but some hope of maintaining viewer momentum.

* Variant: Brazilian channel Record, which is owned by a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IURD massive church]], did not get the 2014 {{FIFA World Cup}} rights. So Record will broadcast religious movies\miniseries, and the channel president\church leader requested his followers to a "TV fasting" during the Cup; the church tried to cover up by saying the cause of such attitude was a new temple instead of TV ratings, but...

* During the fifteenth series of ''Series/TopGear'', the trio knew that one of their episodes was going to go out against TheWorldCup Final on both BBC and ITV. Figuring no-one would be watching, they didn't put much effort into the episode, which didn't even include a Power Lap, although it did contain two Star-in-a-Reasonably-Priced-Car records being broken: Rubens Barrichello on the F1 leaderboard, and [[Film/HarryPotter Rupert Grint]] in the Cee'd (and breaking the Liana and Lacetti records before it). The following week, Jeremy Clarkson admitted even he didn't watch that episode, as he was ''in Johannesburg at the final'' at the time. A similar thing happened again when they realized they were in a losing fight they were in a losing fight against ''BBC Sports Personality Of The Year''.

** Some Creator/{{PBS}} stations aired kids' programming almost all day during the two weeks after the tragedy so that children would have '''something''' to watch besides news on the regular networks. Cable networks such as Creator/DisneyChannel, Creator/{{Nickelodeon}] and Creator/CartoonNetwork presumably followed their example.

* On SuperBowl Sunday, the cable channel AnimalPlanet schedules a program called the "Series/PuppyBowl" -- basically, extended footage of puppies playing in an enclosure resembling a football stadium, along with "play-by-play" commentary (for many years provided by an actual football announcer, Harry Kalas). From the second Puppy Bowl onwards, they had a kitten halftime show, 2013 introduced hedgehog cheerleaders, and 2014 featured guest spots from Franchise/TheMuppets (as a tie-in with the then-upcoming ''Film/MuppetsMostWanted''). Over the years, the Puppy Bowl has become popular enough to crawl out of No Hoper territory. While not coming close to competing with the Super Bowl's viewership, it's repeatedly broken Animal Planet's network records, with ratings increasing from 690K when it premiered in 2005 to 10 million in 2012. It's also gotten popular enough to have its own [[FollowTheLeader imitators]], such as the ''[[EverythingsCuterWithKittens Kitten]]'' [[EverythingsCuterWithKittens Bowl]] which airs on Hallmark Channel.

** American broadcast networks used to attempt to compete with whoever had the contract for the current Super Bowl, but now that they ''all'' air some form of NFL content, they don't even try. Fox sacrificed new episodes of ''TilDeath'' to the 2010 Super Bowl. The show had no following by that point (at least, that wasn't in it for the trainwreck fascination) and the initial airing was only so that the producers could reach the syndication threshold.

** Viacom-owned stations like to run movies opposite the Bowl. For instance, in 2015, Creator/{{Nickelodeon}} showed their in-house film ''Film/{{Rags}}'', and Creator/{{LOGO}} showed ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow''.

* The terrorist attacks of 9/11 and TheWarOnTerror are a spectacular example. Any channel with even a tangential relationship to news reporting was airing non-stop updates, while other networks aired the most anodyne canned material they could find (partially out of respect and partially because they knew no one was watching - including them), and some just stopped broadcast altogether. Thankfully, such programming provided an opportunity to escape from the HeroicBSOD for a few minutes, if needed. Very little original programming aired on any network for at least a week. Sites like the [[http://archive.org/details/911/day/20010912#/ Understanding 9/11]] repository from the Internet Archive show how much the different networks' coverage converged immediately after the attacks. (TheOnion [[https://web.archive.org/web/20100325205520/http://www.theonion.com/issue/3734/ also provided a spot-on "On TV Tonight"...]])
** On the day of the attacks, {{MTV}} and its sister station [=VH1=] did a national simulcast of coverage from NewYorkCity's Viacom-owned [[Creator/{{CBS}} WCBS-TV]], the only major English-language station still broadcasting in the City (they had a backup tower on the Empire State Building, unlike the other stations). For the following week, MTV aired a nonstop music video loop, consisting entirely of Music/DestinysChild's "Emotion", Music/NellyFurtado's "I'm Like a Bird", and {{U2}}'s "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of".
** Like MTV, {{BET}} intially simulcast coverage from CBS, then switched to blocks of music videos interspersed with periodic updates from BET's own news division.
** DiscoveryChannel aired the most anodyne documentaries in their archives for the week after the tragedy.

** Some PBS stations aired kids' programming almost all day during the two weeks after the tragedy so that children would have '''something''' to watch besides news on the regular networks.
** For the first several hours after the attacks {{ESPN}} ran coverage from ABC News. After much soul-searching in Bristol about whether to air ''SportsCenter'', the network decided to go forward with an episode that merely informed viewers of the sports events that had been cancelled or otherwise affected by the day's grim events. Had the decision gone the other way, it would have been the only day in the network's history without at least one airing of ''SportsCenter''.

** Parodied by TheOnion in a piece about the new "[[http://www.theonion.com/articles/network-programming-dominated-by-surreality-tv,3293/ surreality TV]]" genre spawned in the wake of the attack.
** SaturdayNightLive's first episode after the attack opened with [[BigDamnHeroes New York Firemen]] on stage with mayor Rudolph Giuliani giving the audience permission to laugh.
** Subverted by ''TheFundayPawpetShow'', which usually runs on Sunday nights. The cast of the (Internet-based) show quickly gathered together that Tuesday night and did a live broadcast discussing the incident and calming people down. Both out of respect and the fact that it wasn't a 'show' per se, it was not recorded by the creators. The only known recording was viewer-made.
* Parodied on ''[[LateNight LateNight With Conan O'Brien]]'' which, playing opposite the Olympics on Creator/{{CBS}}, ran a segment called "Nobody's Watching", which featured antics such as Conan and Andy smoking cigarettes, Conan revealing that he wore a Hanson t-shirt under his shirt and tie, and [[Series/{{Today}} Al Roker]] stopping by to confess that he hated being a weatherman.

* On SuperBowl Sunday, the cable channel AnimalPlanet schedules a program called the "Series/PuppyBowl" -- basically, extended footage of puppies playing in an enclosure resembling a football stadium, along with "play-by-play" commentary (for many years provided by an actual football announcer, Harry Kalas). From the second Puppy Bowl onwards, they had a kitten halftime show, 2013 introduced hedgehog cheerleaders, and 2014 featured guest spots from Franchise/TheMuppets (as a tie-in with the then-upcoming ''Film/MuppetsMostWanted''). Over the years, the Puppy Bowl has become popular enough to crawl out of No Hoper territory. While not coming close to competing with the Super Bowl's viewership, it's repeatedly broken Animal Planet's network records, with ratings increasing from 690K when it premiered in 2005 to 10 million in 2012. It's also gotten popular enough to have its own [[FollowTheLeader imitator]]: the ''[[EverythingsCuterWithKittens Kitten]]'' [[EverythingsCuterWithKittens Bowl]], which airs on Hallmark Channel.

** Any channel owned by Viacom usually just shows films on their channel. In 2015, their kids channel, Nickelodeon, showed ''Film/{{Rags}}'', and one of their other channels, LOGO, showed ''Film/TheRockyHorrorPictureShow''

* For a period, Creator/{{CTV}} counter-programmed ''HockeyNightInCanada'' on Saturday evenings with a marathon of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' reruns (as if [[AdoredByTheNetwork it doesn't get run enough by CTV and its sister networks to begin with]]) that it was dubbed ''Big Bang Night in Canada''.

* On the UK Polling Day 2015, E4 [[http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/election-2015-e4-been-turned-5649833 broadcast 12 hours of a man sitting in a white room swinging around on his chair to muzak]] in order to encourage young people to go out and vote.

* For Election Day 2004, Cartoon Network repeated '''one episode'' of ''WesternAnimation/HarveyBirdmanAttorneyAtLaw''. It was a thematically relevant Quick Draw [=McGraw=] episode, where Phil Ken Sebben runs for President thanks to support from The Guitar Lobby, but it was all they aired. [[OverlyLongGag All. Day. Long.]]

* For the last few years, every MTV network (including VH1 and digital channels such as MTV Hits and VH1 Classic) has switched to a black screen directing viewers to MTV during the Video Music Awards. The same networks used to air their lousiest programming during the awards show, like VH1's [[AdoredByTheNetwork run-into-the-ground]] TV movie ''The Jacksons: An American Dream''. One year, MTV2 showed a split-screen simulcast, with the official MTV feed in one corner and three other "behind-the-scenes" cameras in the other boxes.

* For the last few years, every MTV network (including VH1 and digital channels such as MTV Hits and VH1 Classic) has switched to a black screen directing viewers to MTV during the Video Music Awards. The same networks used to air their lousiest programming during the awards show, like VH1's the run-into-the-ground TV movie ''The Jacksons: An American Dream''. One year, MTV2 showed a split-screen simulcast, with the official MTV feed in one corner and three other "behind-the-scenes" cameras in the other boxes.

* For a period, Creator/{{CTV}} counter-programmed ''HockeyNightInCanada'' on Saturday evenings with a marathon of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' reruns (as if [[AdoredByTheNetwork it doesn't get run enough by CTV and its sister networks to begin with]]) that it dubbed ''Big Bang Night in Canada''.

* The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 are a tragic example. Any channel with even a tangential relationship to news reporting was airing non-stop updates, while other networks aired the most anodyne canned material they could find (partially out of respect and partially because they knew no one was watching...including them), and some just stopped broadcast altogether. Thankfully, such programming provided an opportunity to escape from the HeroicBSOD for a few minutes, if needed. Very little original programming aired on any network for at least a week. Sites like the [[http://archive.org/details/911/day/20010912#/ Understanding 9/11]] repository from the Internet Archive show how much the different networks' coverage converged immediately after the attacks. (TheOnion [[https://web.archive.org/web/20100325205520/http://www.theonion.com/issue/3734/ also provided a spot-on "On TV Tonight"...]])
** On the day of the attacks, {{MTV}} and its sister station [=VH1=] did a national simulcast of coverage from NewYorkCity's [[Creator/{{CBS}} WCBS-TV]], the only major English-language station still broadcasting in the City (they had a backup tower on the Empire State Building, unlike the other stations). For the following week, MTV aired a nonstop loop of No Hoper Music Videos, consisting entirely of Music/DestinysChild's "Emotion", Music/NellyFurtado's "I'm Like a Bird", and {{U2}}'s "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of".

** DiscoveryChannel aired many No Hoper Documentaries during the week after the attacks.

** In Canada, almost every major basic cable station ran news reports about the tragedy - except for youth programming channels which continued airing repeats of their early morning shows (i.e. stuff for the little ones rather than the {{KidCom}}s and {{Teen Drama}}s normally seen later in the day) and public access stations (almost all of which went to a static image saying that programming was suspended).

** Subverted by ''TheFundayPawpetShow'', which usually runs on Sunday nights. The cast of the interactive show quickly gathered together that Tuesday night and did a live broadcast discussing the incident and calming people down. Both out of respect and the fact that it wasn't a 'show' per se, it was not recorded by the creators. The only known recording was viewer-made.
* Parodied on ''[[LateNight LateNight With Conan O'Brien]]'' which, playing opposite the Olympics on Creator/{{CBS}}, ran a segment called "Nobody's Watching", which featured antics such as Conan and Andy smoking cigarettes, Conan revealing that he wore a Hanson t-shirt under his shirt and tie, and Al Roker stopping by to confess that he hated being a weatherman.

* Similarly, when it became apparent that BarackObama's first State of the Union address would conflict with ''Series/{{Lost}}'''s sixth season premiere, ''the president'' rescheduled. He reshuffled to accommodate the TV schedule again in September 2011 for a speech to Congress that had already been rescheduled once to appease the GOP (it had originally been set for the night of a Republican primary debate), which was shuffled again to an earlier time to avoid competing with the Saints/Packers season kickoff game. Needless to say, in Wisconsin and Louisiana? You didn't see that speech on NBC at all.

* For a period, Creator/{{CTV}} counter-programmed ''HockeyNightInCanada'' on Saturday evenings with a block of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' reruns (as if [[AdoredByTheNetwork it doesn't get run enough by CTV and its sister networks to begin with) that it dubbed ''Big Bang Night in Canada''.