Presidential address could delay start times tonight

President Bush will address the nation this evening at 7 p.m. CST. As of right now, NBC and FOX will carry the address live while ABC and CBS are on the fence about it. (It does't matter either way if UPN or the WB carry it since no one watches those networks on Monday night anyway and they'll both be gone in a few weeks).

FOX will start the season finale of Prison Break as soon as the presidential address is done and then follow it with the penultimate episode of 24 for this season. Neither show will be joined in progress since interrupting even one second of 24 would force fans to go Jack Bauer on the network. NBC would love to preempt 20 minutes of The Apprentice but Donald Trump's hair won't allow it.

UPDATE (10:42 a.m.): Presidential apprvoal ratings are expected to plummet based on this news. ABC has announced that it will join the two-hour season finale of Grey's Anatomy in progress with a recap of what's happened in the first 20 minutes for those of us in the central time zone (same thing for eastern time). The Oprah special that was to air from 7-8 has been moved.

Can I ask--does this make a lick of sense? You're putting a huge show onto a Monday night to test the waters and you pre-empt 20 minutes?!? I'm not a Grey's Anatomy fan but I can understand how the fans of the show are going to be upset about this. I recall back in the day, ABC interrupted two minutes of Lois and Clark's season premiere to show us Jimmy Carter getting on a plane.

I have a feeling BitTorrent is going to be active. Or is this just a ploy to get people to watch the show on ABC's web site or buy it via I-Tunes?

UPDATE AGAIN (10:50 a.m.): I just checked ABC's web site and TV Guide On-Line got it wrong. Seems that Grey's will air part one of the season finale that aired last night from 7-8 p.m. It will be pre-empted by Bush's speech. The entire two-hour finale will air in the regularily scheduled time slot of 8-10 p.m. tonight. Now, I just need to go talk my good friend Katherine down on that ledge (I totally understand..if FOX were to cut 20 minutes of Jack Bauer I'd be going mental).