Bill Fee, Channel 9 general manager, thinks it's the first time the Emmys have been pre-empted.

The station will also pre-empt the Road to the Emmys pre-show (7-8 p.m. tonight) and replace it with Brian Patrick and Julie O'Neill anchoring the 7 p.m. Fusion, a special detailing all the big events of the Queen City Fusion weekend, and the station's 7:30-8:30 p.m. Bengals pre-show.

Dish owners are going to have problems, too. The way it works, says Chris Coghill of DSS Installation Direct TV, is ABC feeds the show to Channel 9's tower. The tower sends it via fiber optics to Denver, where it's sent up to the satellite and down to your home. With Channel 9 pre-empting, there'll be no signal sent.

But people can still watch the show: "I've arranged for ABC to feed the signals to Time Warner Channel 19 (in Cincinnati) and Insight Communications Channel 6 (in Northern Kentucky), so anyone with those two cable companies will be able to watch the Emmys.

"I felt, hey, the Bengals in prime time, it's something we have to do."

The Bengals' last prime-time appearance was a Sept. 22, 2002 loss to Atlanta. Their last home game televised was Oct. 6, 1996, when they lost to the Houston Oilers.

Their next prime time appearance will be on ABC Monday Night Football Oct. 25 against Denver.

Channel 9 is doing a couple of things to make viewers aware of the switch. It has been running promos since Wednesday, telling viewers where to go to see the Emmys. It was also announced on the 5, 5:30 and 6 p.m. news Wednesday. In addition, the station will run a crawl line tonight advising of the Warner and Insight feeds.

Channel 9's broadcast is a simulcast with ESPN, whose team will do the coverage.

E-mail jknippenberg@enquirer.com