I will expand on this point and say that the 10am feed is only really used in the Eastern time zone and not much of anywhere else in the country... who tend to use the afternoon feed. It's not practical to attempt such a radical thing as a 45/75 split.
Not entirely true. Seattle uses the before-Price slot to great effect - the two hour block was consistently one of their most viewed time periods when I was there (honestly, seeing the numbers I'm surprised more affiliates don't try it).
Also, the actual content time number for Price is generally anywhere from 37:15 to 38:00 (minor daily variations). Slightly better than the 36 quoted. There are minor variations between the CBS and streaming versions timing due to the 2x :10 closed captioning ads (and :5 bumps before them) that don't air on streaming/off-net reruns, and due to CBS replacing the real credit roll for a promo and their own network-designed CGI credits, but that's the ballpark. Also worth noting: That's been the standard since
2009 at this point. Price has produced to the same time for sixteen years. (For what it's worth, primetime episodes are timed out to 42:30 and I fully believe that is a major reason why they're some of my favorite episodes with Drew).
Because of certain complications with the ownership and controlling interest (I've heard that CBS has at least some degree of stake in TPIR?), what I'd do in this situation isn't really feasible, but I enjoy the idea of it far more than taking the butcher's knife mindlessly to the show.
When the contract is up for renewal, and in a world where there's no potential ownership tie, I simply let CBS know "Price in daytime is more popular than most of your primetime shows at this point, which get 21/42. 40 minutes is the floor (but I'm going in aiming for the full 42), or we'll walk the show. ABC, NBC, streaming, you name it. If some of your sponsors want to buy placements and prize sponsorships in the show to recoup costs, we can talk about profit-sharing." Affiliates can keep their same local time, and the network can eat 2:30. Price is one of CBS's best rated shows in any daypart in most markets as well as nationally, time to act like it. Since the show's among the most popular things CBS airs, it should honestly be able to get slightly more cash for the reduced # of availabilities too.
And if they call my bluff, I walk.
I'm not changing the show (especially not when the network hasn't cut time since Obama's first year in office), and changing the show to fit just signals that I'm potentially willing to lose more time if they go that route. 22:30 of ads is one of the reason no one under 30 watches non-sports linear TV, and no one having the guts to say "this is idiotic and needs to stop" is one of the reasons we got here. I would literally move the show to Amazon or Hulu if need be (similar to how Wheel and J! are starting down that road), I do not care.