Daytime television television genre which features television programming traditionally produced and scheduled to air between the hours of 9am (at the end of morning show-type programming) and 5pm (when local news and the early fringe of primetime begins).
The type of programming is usually designed to be viewed by audiences such as stay-at-home mothers and fathers, and secondarily those viewers who might not usually carry a job, such as the unemployed, senior citizens and in some select cases, college students. For all intents and purposes however the traditional target of daytime television has been demographically 18-49 women, and as such daytime programming is hosted by women and usually pertains to women's issues and other subjects such as child care, minor health care and other issues within a home setting.
In the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, and Australia, talk show programming in this vein is a significant part of this time slot, and shows that have coverage in most of these regions include Oprah, The View, Jeremy Kyle, This Morning and Dr. Phil. Also a popular audience in this time frame is the college student; game shows such as the original Jeopardy! (1964–75) and, since the 1990s, The Price Is Right have targeted this audience. Soap operas such as All My Children, General Hospital and The Young and the Restless continue to be popular in the U.S. and Canada.
Meanwhile news networks such as CNN, Fox News Channel, CTV Newsnet, CBC News Network, and Sky News usually program rolling news coverage where a set schedule of stories is followed, but is broken at any time for breaking news, while business networks such as CNBC, Fox Business Network and Bloomberg Television explicitly program to draw in viewers who might only watch for minutes at a time in settings such as health clubs, bars, restaurants, banks, and other financial institutions and the floors of stock exchanges, and closed captioning is usually turned on in these settings. In other public settings such as a university or airport, specific programming targeting a certain institution, such as the CNN Airport Network and MTVU is aired with rolling programming on public television sets designed to get attention for only a short period of time.
Children's television networks usually use the 9am-3pm timeslot before children of school age return home to air preschool programming for young viewers, while PBS member stations might either carry exclusively children's programming, or instructional programming to be taped for later use, programs which can be watched as part of acquiring college credit, or for viewers to eventually acquire their General Equivalency Diploma.
In the UK, daytime television is generally aimed at young children (below school age), as well as women, students and the unemployed.
| Preceded by Breakfast television |
Television dayparts 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM |
Succeeded by Prime time |