Criticized for its decision to carry post-season baseball games in place of the presidential debates, NBC said over the weekend that it will transmit two separate feeds -- baseball and the debates -- and let individual stations decide which one to air. (FCC Commissioner Susan Ness joined the critics on Friday, commenting "Surely television networks and their owned-and-operated stations can forgo profits from entertainment programming for an hour and a half to allow their viewers to see the leading candidates for our nation's top office debate the critical issues of the day.")

A spokesman for Hearst-Argyle TV, which owns NBC affiliates in Orlando, Baltimore and Cincinnati, immediately announced that the company plans to carry the debates and not baseball. NBC's owned station in Washington D.C., WRC, also said that it would opt out of baseball coverage.

NBC-owned stations and affiliates on the West Coast are expected to air the games live (they are scheduled to begin at 5:00 p.m.) and the debates via tape-delay in primetime (barring any marathon extra-inning contests).

Under NBC's contract with Major League Baseball, the network must attempt to find another station to carry the playoff games when they are preempted in any market.

Source: Studio Briefing