Nellie Andreeva

They meet again! After a scheduling move by NBC pitted the network’s The Voice and Fox’s The X Factor during their premiere week, the two singing competition series will go head-to-head again on Tuesday after Fox rescheduled tonight’s episode because of baseball rain delay. “It what’s known as a total f up,” is how X Factor Simon Cowell summed up the situation on Twitter.

Fox first attempted to air X Factor tonight as scheduled on the East Coast despite a baseball rain delay that bled into primetime. After getting word that Game 3 of NLCS wouldn’t resume before the end of Fox’s primetime at 10 PM ET, the network began airing X Factor on the East Coast at about 8:40 PM. But about an hour later, word came that the game would start momentarily, prompting Fox to pull the X Factor feed to switch back to baseball. However, the game did not start right away but after a portion of a Mindy Project repeat. Compounding Fox’s woes tonight, a technical error had the East Coast feed of The X Factor air simultaneously on the West Coast.

As a result, X Factor has been pre-empted on the West Coast tonight, with an X Factor repeat airing instead. Tonight’s conclusion of the “Judges’ Homes round will air in its entirety next Tuesday from 8-10 PM. In addition to facing the hourlong Tuesday edition of The Voice, X Factor will preempt Fox’s fledgling Tuesday comedy block. The 9-10 PM comedies New Girl and The Mindy Project were already pre-empted for the Presidential debate this week and will be again on Nov. 6 for Election night coverage. Now their return will be delayed for another week, a very disruptive move, especially for a new series. Several weeks of a forced hiatus for baseball and X Factor last fall zapped then-freshman New Girl‘s great momentum. The hot comedy was down in its return to the schedule and never recovered.

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