The scheduling of television programming in North America must cope with a continent spanning ten time zones: the United States (excluding territories) has six time zones (Hawaii-Aleutian, Alaska, Pacific, Mountain, Central and Eastern), Canada also has six (Pacific, Mountain, Central, Eastern, Atlantic and Newfoundland), Mexico has three (Pacific, Mountain and Central), Greenland also has three (Atlantic, UTC−03 and UTC−01; UTC−02 is not used). This requires broadcast and cable television networks in each country to time-shift programs shown in different regions.
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Canadian broadcasting networks, with six time zones and a difference of 18 hours to span and a much larger percentage of its audience residing in the Mountain Time Zone than in the Central Time Zone, are sometimes able to avoid the issues that affect U.S. programming by airing prerecorded programs on local time. CBC and CTV created delay centres in Calgary in the early 1960s in order to allow programming to air in each time zone based on the region.[1] The sole exception is in Newfoundland, which has a time zone oddity of running a half-hour later than the nearby Maritimes region. This is particularly a problem in Saskatchewan as most of the province does not use daylight saving time and remains on Central Standard Time year-round. While Saskatchewan, Manitoba and parts of northwestern Ontario share the same clock setting during the winter season, Saskatchewan and Alberta share the same clock setting during the summer season, despite the fact that Alberta is in the Mountain Time Zone. Schedules must be adjusted for the summer season (some changes to schedules are also due to the preference for showing U.S. programs at the same time as US stations, which maintains Canadian broadcasters' right of simultaneous substitution).
A small number of Canadian television networks are not broadcast to a national audience such as over-the-air networks A and Citytv, which air in only a few markets and do not air in the Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest Territories and premium cable channels Movie Central and The Movie Network, which air in separate areas of Canada (Movie Central in the Territories and Western Canada and The Movie Network in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada). Canadian channels operating in this manner often negate the use of timeshifting as they only cover a few time zones instead of serving all six time zones that serve the country. However, the majority of specialty cable channels in Canada serve all time zones, with the minor exception of French-language services that often are available solely in predominately French-speaking regions such as Quebec. The French countpart of CBC, Radio-Canada, have four feeds to allow programs to air at the same time, local time in each the zone except for the Atlantic time zone who have programs at the same time of the Eastern zone but an hour later for them (eg. 20h00 HE/21h00 HA), and it's the same thing for Newfoundland but with an hour and a half difference with Eastern time.
The UTC−03 Standard Time Zone is commonly used as a sort of de facto official time for the Greenlander main broadcasting station, with three time zones and a difference of four hours to span and a much larger percentage of the island population residing in this Time Zone than in the western and eastern exceptions, are sometimes able to avoid these issues by airing programs on this time. This is particularly a problem in the eastern town of Ittoqqortoormiit as the settlement and its surrounding area whole state uses UTC−01 Standard Time Zone, both time zones observes daylight saving time and observes European Union DST rules. The UTC−02 Standard Time Zone is not use in the country.
The UTC−04 Standard Time Zone is used in northwestern Greenland, area around Thule Air Base observes North American DST rules, known in Canada as the Atlantic Time Zone and in the Caribbean as the "Eastern Caribbean Time Zone".
The Central Time Zone is commonly used as a sort of de facto official time for the Mexican broadcasting networks, with three time zones and a difference of three hours to span and a much larger percentage of its audience residing in the Central Time Zone than in the Mountain Time Zone, are sometimes able to avoid these issues by airing programs on Central time. This is particularly a problem in Sonora as the whole state does not use daylight saving time and remains on Mountain Standard Time year-round (this matches the practice of Arizona, with which it shares a long border). The low populated Revillagigedo Islands does not use daylight saving time and remains on Mountain Standard Time year-round, with the minor exception of Clarion Island which remains in the Pacific Standard Time year-round.
When the U.S. extended its daylight time period in 2007, Mexico did not change its effective dates. This means that in most of the country, daylight time starts three or four weeks later and ends one week earlier than in the U.S. and Canada. However, the northern border cities in four of the six states that border on the U.S. (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas), plus the entire state of Baja California, activate daylight saving time on the same dates as the U.S. and Canada. During the period when the U.S. and Canada are on daylight saving time and most of Mexico is not:
With four time zones in the contiguous United States, U.S. national networks and cable channels generally air at least two separate feeds to its stations and affiliates: the "east feed" that is aired simultaneously in the Eastern and Central Time Zones, and the "west feed" that is tape-delayed three hours for those in the Pacific Time Zone. This ensures that a program, for example, that airs at 8 p.m. on the east coast is also shown locally at 8 p.m. on the west coast. Networks may also air a third feed specifically for the Mountain Time Zone, which usually airs on a one-hour delay from the east feed; otherwise those in the Mountain Time Zone get the west feed.
The Eastern Time Zone is commonly used as a de facto official time for the United States, since it includes the nation's capital Washington, D.C., the country's largest city, New York, and approximately half of the country's population. Because of this, television schedules are almost always posted in Eastern Time. Broadcast networks and cable channels also advertise airtimes in Eastern time, sometimes also including either Central or Pacific time and until the 1980s, Mountain time, depending on whether there is a separate feed for that time zone. This has led to conventions like "tonight at 9/8 Central" (referring to the east feed), "tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific" (referring to both the east feed and the three-hour delayed west feed), and "tonight at 9/8 Central and Mountain" (also including the Mountain feed).
A few cable channels may not audibly refer to the Central time airtime of a program, though their promos may also visually include references to its broadcast in both the Eastern and Central time zones. So when a viewer only hears "tonight at 8," regardless of whether the promo visually includes it or not, chances are that the show they are referring to is scheduled to air at 7 p.m. in the Central time zone.
Effectively, the East, Mountain, and West feeds allow primetime on the terrestrial TV networks to end at 10 p.m. Central and Mountain and 11 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, though Fox, The CW and the MyNetworkTV program service subtract an hour for their primetime schedules as they end their primetime earlier than NBC, CBS and ABC.
For some shows, the networks must utilize a fourth feed for the Central Time Zone. Morning shows like Good Morning America, Today and The Early Show may start too early for viewers in the Midwest and the central South; hence, they are tape-delayed to air at 7 a.m. Central. In another example, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest, which airs every New Year's Eve, must be broadcast so that the show is correlated to when midnight strikes in every time zone.
Network programming in Alaska generally follows a schedule similar to that of Central Time Zone, with stations in Anchorage broadcasting directly from the west coast feed without tape delay. Programs that air at 8 p.m. Pacific will air at 7 p.m. in Anchorage and Juneau. With the exception of ABC affiliate KATN, network programming in Fairbanks is tape-delayed by one hour. Hawaii also follows a schedule similar to the Central Time Zone, though Fox affiliate KHON-TV and its satellites air the network's Sunday programming on a one-hour tape delay, airing from 7-10 p.m. instead of 6-9 p.m.
The territory of Guam, which is on the other side of the International Date Line than the rest of the United States, airs primetime shows, network newscasts and morning shows the day after they air in the U.S. off a satellite feed. However, sports events air live; those that air in the daytime in the U.S. show overnight in Guam, while NBC Sunday Night Football, the World Series, and other primetime telecasts air the next morning, typically at 9 or 10 a.m. The only network affiliate in American Samoa, KKHJ-LP, airs the west coast feed on a three-hour delay. (Details for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are in the next section below.)
Not all network programming is strictly scheduled, however. Network soap operas, game shows, and national news programs have recommended times to air, but the final scheduling for those shows is most often at the discretion of the local stations.
For those with cable or satellite TV, subscribers may still only receive the East Coast Feed for certain channels despite the fact that they may reside on the West Coast. Some cable channels may in fact only offer one feed to begin with, meaning viewers see the same program in all time zones; for example, when cable superstation WGN America airs the 9 p.m. CT newscast from WGN-TV in Chicago, it also airs at 10 p.m. ET in Washington, D.C. and 7 p.m. PT in San Francisco. On the other hand, some providers may offer both the East and West coast feeds of some basic cable channels for viewing in all time zones, allowing viewers who missed a particular program to watch it three hours earlier or later depending on the time zone they live in.
Nickelodeon is the only basic cable channel that airs feeds from both coasts to viewers who do not subscribe to satellite television, as that channel carries a feed called Nick 2 (whose name is no longer used on-air), which is essentially the opposite coast's feed of Nickelodeon (the Pacific feed for East Coast viewers, and vice versa) to digital cable subscribers; while the main feed of the channel for the respective time zone is carried on the local cable provider's basic package. The usage of dual feeds of the same channel is a commonplace method for premium channels such as HBO, Showtime and Starz, in which the west coast feed of (usually only) the primary channel is packaged with the east coast feed of the main channel and the pay service's multiplex channels (if the premium channel has any).
Many live events are broadcast simultaneously nationwide, including most sporting events, national breaking news stories, the State of the Union address, presidential and Congressional election coverage, and the Academy Awards. For such events the networks may either advertise Eastern time only, or list the times in both Eastern and Pacific (e.g. "8 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Pacific").
However, many award shows, most Olympic competitions, and other similar events that are broadcast live in the Eastern and Central time zones, including some that originate from Los Angeles such as the Emmy Awards, the Grammy Awards, Dancing with the Stars, and the final rounds of American Idol, may be tape-delayed in the Mountain and Pacific time zones. The practice of tape delay is due to the potentially higher West Coast viewership during primetime hours.
News channels such as CNN and sports channels such as ESPN that frequently broadcast live events offer a single feed that airs in all time zones.
Local stations and affiliates must schedule their local and syndicated programming around their respective network's feed. Because the primetime East Coast Feed is simulcast in two times zones, it affects stations in the Central Time Zone differently than those in the Eastern Time Zone.
An hour of syndicated programming time (between 7 and 8 p.m. in the Eastern Time Zone) is lost in the Central time zone (as well as the Mountain time zone) since network primetime there starts at 7 p.m., forcing those stations to choose between airing their 6 p.m. newscast and a program, or airing shows in 'blocks' preferred by syndicators (for example, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! together, or Entertainment Tonight and The Insider); the most common set of programming chosen by the Big Three television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) is to air a newscast at 5 p.m., national news at 5:30 p.m., local news at 6 p.m., and syndicated programming at 6:30 p.m., though some Fox stations that carry a Big Three-style news schedule (commonly stations that were former Big Three affiliates themselves) carry a 60- or 90-minute block of news from 5-6 (or 6:30) p.m. with an additional half-hour of local news in the 5:30 p.m. timeslot since Fox has yet to carry a national evening newscast. Some Big Three affiliates in the Eastern and Pacific time zones follow this early evening newscast model as well, running a 90-minute block of news from 5-6:30 p.m., particularly if they run a network's national evening newscast at 6:30 p.m. ET/PT. Some stations, regardless of time zone, even show a newscast from 6-7 p.m., which if run on a network station in the Central or Mountain time zones would lead into primetime network programming. Some television stations (e.g., WKYC and WJW-TV in Cleveland, WACH in Columbia, SC) have recently begun using the fact that primetime in the Eastern time zone begins at 8 p.m. to their advantage by carrying a newscast during the 7 p.m. hour, generally due to attract viewers who work longer days and cannot return home to watch a 5 or 6 p.m. newscast.
Many stations that do not carry a newscast in the 6 p.m. time slot in the Central time zone, commonly affiliates of non-historical networks like Fox (though some Fox stations air a 6 p.m. newscast, though this is not entirely common as of yet), The CW and MyNetworkTV, air situation comedies during that hour. Many stations in the Central Time Zone tend to air one or both parts of the syndicated block at 5 p.m. or even earlier. Another more recent dilemma of the 7 p.m. primetime start is that a combination of longer commutes and work hours than in the past have caused many people to not come home from work until after 7 p.m., cutting into the potential ratings of shows that start at this time. Of course, the reverse is also true, as simultaneous broadcasts offer viewers the chance to watch "prime time television" without having to stay awake until 11 p.m.
In the case of the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless, the network airs it at 12:30 p.m. in the Eastern Time Zone following a local news break and recommends that stations in other time zones air it at 11:30 a.m. However, most stations in the Central Time Zone choose to run it at 11 a.m. (after The Price Is Right) and then followed by a local newscast at noon. Few CBS stations in the Central time zone run Y&R at 11:30, among them CBS owned-and-operated stations WBBM-TV (channel 2) in Chicago and KTVT (channel 11) in Dallas-Fort Worth. For this reason, neither The Price Is Right or Y&R has an announcement to stay tuned for the next program, though most daytime shows do not have a program announcement for other daytime shows anyway.
Local programming and television news are not typically affected as many stations air the morning newscast at 4:30, 5 or 5:30 a.m., and the early evening newscasts at 5 and/or 6 p.m., the late evening newscast is affected due to the differences in time between time zones, meaning that if the late local news starts at 10 p.m. Central time on one network station, an affiliate of the same network in the Eastern time zone airs theirs at 11 p.m., the late night program lineups on NBC, ABC and CBS are also similarly timeshifted airing a half-hour later. Many Fox, CW and MyNetworkTV affiliates and some independent stations carry a prime time newscast that is similarly affected by the timeshifting of the primetime schdule, meaning that if the primetime local news starts at 9 p.m. Mountain time on one network station, an affiliate of the same network in the Pacific time zone would air theirs at 10 p.m. Similarly, media coverage of New Year's Eve celebrations in New York City often leave the Central Time Zone out. Late Night with Conan O'Brien, though produced in New York, when broadcast on New Year's Eve took advantage of its later time slot (11:37 p.m. Central time) to lampoon this inconsistency and produce its own New Year's countdown for television viewers in the Central Time Zone, although most Central Time local network affiliates usually broadcast Conan after covering their own regional New Year's Eve celebrations. In some locations, New York's New Year's Eve celebration might be repeated or delayed one hour to correspond to the Central Time zone.[2]
Since late 2009, PBS has begun using servers instead of separate feeds for time delaying of its programming to the network's member stations. The servers imitate a delayed program feed, broadcasting the program at the correct airtime as if it were being broadcast via satellite. This was needed due to PBS having upgraded its main program feed to high-definition (or to widescreen digital at the very least) in December 2008, but satellite capacity allowed for only two feeds of the schedule, Eastern and Pacific, prompting the removal of the feeds for the Central and Mountain time zones and a shared feed for Alaska and Pacific time zones in February 2009, which created complaints from PBS stations.[3]
National live events that are simulcast across the country also present special problems for local stations. A live Sunday sporting event that is played from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Eastern Time preempts local 6 p.m. newscasts on the East Coast. Likewise, a State of the Union address that is televised at 9 p.m. Eastern Time preempts local 6 p.m. newscasts on the West Coast.
Some areas of the U.S. do not observe daylight saving time, leading to the following changes: