The Fox affiliate in Memphis, Tenn., will televise the Cowboys-Panthers game in the early NFL window Sunday rather than airing the Titans-Raiders game in the later window against the 49ers at Buccaneers on CBS.
There is no obligation for network affiliates in Memphis to carry Titans’ road games, as the city falls outside the team’s home television territory, which ranges to about 75 miles outside a team’s home city.
“Most of the time, Memphis takes Titans games,” a source familiar with the network scheduling process said. “On this particular weekend, Fox has the Cowboys game at 1:00 and they don’t often get Cowboys games at 1:00.
"You can imagine, the Cowboys are on NBC three times a year, they’re on ESPN twice, on Thanksgiving, on Amazon. The Cowboys rarely find themselves in a 1:00 Eastern window and when they do, Fox really likes to maximize it."
The decision comes from Fox corporate in Los Angeles along with the Fox affiliate in Memphis, WHBQ, who get together to determine what will bring them maximum viewership given their choices – 1:00 ET with the 
Cowboys (against Browns-Steelers) or the Titans at 3:05 against the Bucs-49ers.
As a free agent in this situation, they decided on the Cowboys. It’s unclear what WHBQ’s preference was and how much sway the local station has with corporate. I've been told by people in the business, corporate generally makes those decisions regardless or what affiliates think.
Station leadership did not return a phone message this week. Ratings history typically is a big factor in such decision, the source said.
The Titans are gathering more information and said it’s always their desire to have games on television available to their fans across the state.
