1. Television

The main events counterprogrammed in the United States are the Super Bowl, the Oscars, and the Olympic Games.

1.1. Super Bowl

The Super Bowl, being among the most watched sports television events in the United States, became a notable target of counterprogramming during the 1990s due to its previous halftime shows; which critics felt were dated and not representative of modern pop culture.^[1] During Super Bowl XXVI, Fox aired a live, football-themed episode of In Living Color against halftime; the special drew 22 million viewers; Nielsen estimated that CBS lost 10 ratings points during halftime as a result of the special.^[2]

The success of the special alarmed the National Football League, who took steps to increase interest and viewership of the halftime show by inviting major pop musicians to perform, beginning with Michael Jackson at Super Bowl XXVII. This pattern continued until 2005, when an incident at Super Bowl XXXVIII's halftime show where Justin Timberlake exposed one of Janet Jackson's breasts, led to a string of halftime shows with a single, headlining classic rock act (such as The Rolling Stones, Prince, and Bruce Springsteen) in an effort to prevent a repeat of the "wardrobe malfunction" (since Super Bowl XLV, the NFL has returned to inviting pop artists to play halftime).^[2][3] Despite Michael Jackson's performance helping to increase interest in subsequent halftime shows, Fox's success inspired imitators, and influenced other specials such as Animal Planet's annual Puppy Bowl (featuring dogs playing in a model football stadium), and the Lingerie Bowl, a series of pay-per-view broadcasts of all-female football games played in lingerie—proving popular enough to be spun off into its own Lingerie Football League.^[4]

Under an unsaid gentlemen's agreement, all four major networks (including CBS, Fox, and NBC, who also alternate airing the Super Bowl on a yearly cycle; ESPN is under the same ownership as ABC) will typically not schedule any new programming (nor air counterprogramming) on the night of the Super Bowl.^[2] Fox provided an exception in 2010 when it aired two new episodes of 'Til Death against Super Bowl XLIV; however, the network had been in the process of burning off the low-rated sitcom in unusual timeslots so its distributor would have enough episodes to syndicate it.^[5][6] NFL Network also suspends programming in favor of Super Bowl Game Center, a static screen with the game's radio broadcast and a live scoreboard.^[7]

1.2. Academy Awards

In 2007, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California was held on the same day as the Academy Awards, although it was held during the early afternoon with a 1:00 p.m. PT (4:00 p.m. ET) start.^[8] The 2008 Auto Club 500 was plagued by rain delays and unintentionally aired against a portion of the ceremony; its start time was pushed back to around 3:00 p.m. PT (6:00 p.m. ET), while the race itself was halted again at around 6:00 p.m. PT (9:00 p.m. ET). In 2009, the race was intentionally scheduled with a 3:00 p.m. PT start, which would overlap into the telecast of the 81st Academy Awards. Fox Sports' senior vice president of programming and research Bill Wanger supported the idea, believing that NASCAR races "[could] hold their own against any competition", as the two events had contrasting demographics of mostly male and mostly female viewers.^[9][10] For the 2010 season, the race was moved back to a 12:00 p.m. PT (3:00 p.m. ET) due to the implementation of standardized start times for all races.^[11][12]

For a number of years, the championship game of the NCAA men's basketball tournament aired on the day of the Academy Awards ceremony, leading into the primetime. The 1976 NCAA Final Four, broadcast on NBC, ended with the Indiana Hoosiers defeating the Michigan Wolverines, 86-68; the game ended just as the Best Film Editing Oscar was about to the announced. That year's Academy Awards ceremony acknowledged its competition when the final score of the game was announced before Verna Fields was announced as the winner of the award. By the time CBS had taken over broadcasting the NCAA Final Four, the Academy Awards ceremony had by now taken place the week before the Final Four, and has since moved well away into mid or late February due to ABC's want to have the awards take place during the February sweeps period, along with the general consolidation of the film awards season into a shorter period.

The 2012 NBA All-Star Game was played opposite the 84th Academy Awards. The presentation drew an estimated 39.3 million viewers, a 4% increase over the previous year. Conversely, viewership for the All Star Game on TNT measured at 7.1 million, a 22% decline from last year's 9.1 million.^[13]

1.3. Other

NBC, the long-time broadcaster of the Macy's Fourth of July fireworks in New York City , has historically aired an encore presentation of the special at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT, immediately following its live broadcast. The Boston Pops Orchestra's own concert and fireworks special on CBS aired live at the same time as the NBC encore. While NBC claimed that this was for budgetary reasons, Boston Pops executive producer David G. Mugar believed that NBC had done so to intentionally pull viewers away from the Boston Pops. After ratings fell by 1 million viewers for 2012, CBS ended its national broadcasts of the event in 2013; the concert was still aired in full, as before, by its Boston station WBZ-TV.^[14] The national broadcast was revived on CBS for 2016, with the nationally televised portion of the broadcast expanded to two hours,^[15] before moving to Bloomberg Television in 2017 due to Bloomberg's new sponsorship of the event.^[16][17]

On the day of Donald Trump's inauguration as president of the United States, Comedy Central broadcast an all-day marathon of the 20th season of South Park, which featured an ongoing storyline where Mr. Garrison is elected president in a parody of Trump and his campaign.^[18]

During the 2018 Winter Olympics, which were broadcast by NBC, other networks generally placed their main lineups of scripted programming on hiatus, although ABC still aired The Bachelor and Shark Tank, CBS still aired The Amazing Race, and The CW still scheduled new episodes of selected scripted series. ABC and CBS also scheduled spin-offs of reality competition franchises to specifically compete against the Olympics, including The Bachelor Winter Games (which featured alumni of The Bachelor participating in winter sports events), and Celebrity Big Brother (which also aired its season finale against the closing ceremony).^[19]

In the United Kingdom , the Independent Television Commission can punish broadcasters who deliberately counterprogram another broadcaster for the intent of damaging the other broadcaster's ratings. In 2000, the coincidental scheduling of the first million-pound winner on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? opposite the final episode of One Foot in the Grave drew accusations of counterprogramming; the ITC, after investigating the matter, exonerated Millionaire and its broadcaster of any wrongdoing.^[20]

2. College Football

The move is harder in the sport, especially with ESPN games competing against CBS games. Because of a CBS contract with the Southeastern Conference that gives the conference exclusivity at the 3:30 p.m. ET slot, and ESPN's games being regional (parts of the country may receive games from different conferences), and even a Fox game with one of their three conferences, college football schedules are intentionally made flexible in order to allow networks to choose the best game when possible. The SEC opened their exclusivity up slightly in the 2014 for ESPN with the launch of their SEC Network with the conference, which now allows that ESPN to air up to two SEC games (one on the main SEC Network feed, with a lower-tier matchup carried by the SEC Network's alternate feed), though CBS retains first choice for their preferred game.