Does this mean they won't be using a delay so they can easily dump if they need to?

Does this mean they won't be running the dress-rehearsal concurrently a la SNL in case they need something do dump to?

In this day and age, they need to keep their asses covered.  The days of doing it "without a net" are long gone.  Especially in prime time.

If by chance they're not employing any of the above methods and something does go wrong, you can be sure there will enough folks recording it to make sure the special moments are preserved forever. 

As for me, unless I'm in front of the TV and have nothing else to do, It won't be appointment viewing.  But I am curious how the Kevin Hart as Arnold thing will work.
 

It's funny how the more things change, etc. TV shows in the 50s were almost all done live and while there were the occasional mistakes and ad libs, it was pretty much nothing special. Now it's a gimmick to get your attention. It's like those people who go to a car race waiting for a spectacular crash. No one really wants to see that, of course, but...

I also watched that Connors, and for the same reasons you cite. However, I will admit to watching it twice that week - the east and later the west coast feed, just to see if there were any differences in the script or the performances. Both were pretty similar, with a few subtle changes. 

I remember the Drew Carey Show used to do at least one live episode every year and it was always different enough between the two time zones. I believe it was one of the first to do this kind of live stunting and the ratings were always good whenever they did it. 

Just a word or two in the script, nothing major. But they had some sort of weird contest that was different. If you remember the episode, one of the characters was "visiting" distant Conner relatives via his iPad, supposedly for a school assignment. The winners of the contest got to appear on that night's live show as those long lost relations. The two or three people they used on the west coast show were all different than the folks who got on the eastern feed. 

And since it was live and the personalities weren't all the same, they were asked different questions and had separate interactions between the two shows. Other than that, the script and the plots were the same. 

Followed by...the "raw tape" version of Abbott Elementary. lol
Interesting to learn what a TV show sounds like when they accidentally leave the audio of a noisy school full of kids running and forget to turn the mic on for each Teacher when they speak. 

Loved the rolling lines on the Kimmel promo. Brings back fond memories of co-channel interference and potential DX possibilities.