It's been a frustration of television fans for a long time that sometimes sports, mainly football, runs over into their favorite programming, pushing the broadcast time later. In the days before DVRs, one tuned in when the show was airing, anyway, and aside from possibly having to stay up a bit later, it wasn't that big a deal. But now that many record their shows, and don't check in on them when they are on, this has become a problem.
One side of the issue is that DVR technology has just not caught up with the real world. It's great to be able to record things, but often the schedule updates maybe once a day. Because the DVR does not track what is airing in real-time, it cannot make adjustments when the NFL teams take a bit longer than is scheduled.
I assume that the fix will ultimately come from DVRs being able to tell when this occurs. Until this happens, though, we are liable to miss the second half of The Good Wife, and I don't see that as an acceptable concession.
On a side note, if CBS would join the rest of the broadcast networks in the modern era and make their shows easily available to stream online, the problem would be less urgent. But since they focus on the older viewership, their main audience, they don't seem to be in any hurry to catch up with the times. And CBS has been the main offender for this problem lately.
One solution some DVR owners choose to pursue is to set their recording times a half hour or an hour longer. There are a couple of problems with that, though. Sunday night is arguably the biggest night of the week for TV, with cable channels such as HBO, AMC, and Showtime running their new installments mainly on this night, and ABC, CBS, FOX, and PBS competing, too. Most DVRs record two shows at once, and it takes away from other channels if you let one show record at double length. Also, unless you have one of the massive TiVos that can record hundreds of hours of HD programming, you might be concerned you don't have the space to hold more. (Disclosure: I do have a massive TiVo that can record four shows at once, and I still run into both of these things.)
But I think the sports run-over runs deeper than this. We, as a society, have decided that sports is the most important of all of the television programming, especially NFL football. It gets more viewers than anything else, makes more money from ads, and thus, gets the top priority. The network isn't about to cut off the end of the game for fear of angering the source of their income.
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