It's been a long time since U.S. President Joe Biden has interrupted primetime for an address to the nation. But he's doing just that on Thursday night, slicing at least 20 minutes (and possibly more after analysis) out of regular programming to deal with both the Mid-East and the Ukraine wars. 

Both are important issues, but it brings up another far more minor inconvenience - what do the Canadian stations that simulcast American shows do while the U.S. networks are taking that speech at 8 PM?

According to the listings at zap2it.com (for which I used a generic Toronto postal code) some are going to try and wait for the speech to end so they can keep simsub intact, while others are going with regular shows at the regular time. 

The most bizarre is Global, which broadcasts both "Buddy Games" and "Big Brother" in tandem with CBS. If the listing is to be believed, they'll be showing a shortened version of old standby "Border Security" to fill the time, while they wait for the American schedule to start. That would delay their late news until at least 11:15 PM and possibly longer.

Meanwhile, over on ABC, "The Golden Bachelor" and "Bachelor In Paradise" are now slated to start at the odd time of 8:22 PM and 9:22 PM respectively. But it says that City TV, which carries both, will run the shows at the scheduled 8 PM start time. Does this mean they lose the simsub on cable? 

It may not come as a surprise that Fox is ignoring Biden's speech altogether and is airing regular programming at the usual time, which solves a problem for CTV, which is taking the same two shows. But it's starting "The Challege USA" season finale at 10 PM, even though CBS won't show it until at least 10:22.

NBC's schedule, which includes Season 3 of CTV's Transplant, isn't being shared by any Canadian stations, so their late start won't affect anything here. 

It's just one of those rare odd moments that - because of simsub - makes it hard to know when your favourite show starts. So if you've set your DVR for any of those, best to extend the record times just in case.