The East Coast, Time and TV

[Sledder]

Yes, prime-time starts at 8. Who has time to get home, make dinner, eat and clean up by 7:00? No one, which is why 7:00 and 7:30 are filled with sitcom re-runs and Entertainment Tonight.

I don't usually get home from work until 9-9:30, so I miss everything. I haven't seen an episode of Lost in about a month - I'm going into withdrawal.

Just remember, everything is half an hour later in Newfoundland.

Get a PVR man, I never watch anything live and I get home at 5:15, if I were in your situation a PVR would be a must!

 

[Spot's Meow]

KCRA is the NBC affiliate.

But yes, CBS here (Channel 13) is an hour earlier than everyone else.

I was just coming back to the thread to edit my post for that. I don't know why I put NBC, I meant 13.

 

[Alpinemaps]

I was just in Hawaii, which is (for another week) 2 hours behind the west coast. They do the same as the Central time zone, with shows starting at 7. I think Arizona, which does not change with daylight savings either, is also the same way. When the time change happens, I think they switch to 8 PM, but I can't be certain.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I'm generally a nighttime person, so the 8-11 primetime works perfectly for me. Then I can follow it up with The Daily Show and Colbert Report and go to bed at midnight if I have something important to do the next day.

 

[Ariadne]

I'm guessing that prime time on the east coast starts at 8 with local news at 11.

Strangely, this is the same time that both of these start in CA.

Anyone have any idea why it is that primetime would start at 8 on both coasts, and 7 for both mountain and central time zones?

Edit: Digits, do the Angels and Dodgers still have home games that start at 4 or 4:30 on weekday nights against east coast teams? I remeber those being a royal PITA to get to on time.

Population distribution - if you're going to have two "showings", it makes the most sense to make things convenient for the Eastern and Pacific time zones, since they're heavily populated.

They can't give every time zone their own schedule because shows often aren't ready until just before airtime for the eastern group, so Atlantic would have to wait anyway. Once you've gone down that path, Central seems to like having things early (and, for example, joining in live threads here), so you might as well give Pacific and Mountain the shows at the same time. (That's apparently also why the Canadian channels that simulcast often don't have the "coming up next time" promo - it wasn't ready for the American network until a minute beforehand, and they didn't have time to send it to our channel on time.)

(IIRC, most cable channels have the mountain time zone on the 'an hour later' schedule like atlantic, watching things at the same time as pacific.)

 

[erastus25]

OP: I've always thought the central schedule seemed early. Probably comes from living in Portland, OR and Boston all my life so I've always been on the 8-11 schedule.

Anyone know what they do in Mountain time? Is it also an 8-11 time block. If so, that would mean the networks would need to send out 3 feeds: East and Central; Mountain; Pacific. Why not group the mountain and pacific together like the east and central and then you'd only need to send out two feeds. Makes sense to me!

Anyway, the thing that bothered me the most is the sports schedule on weekdays. I'm a big NBA fan and it's pretty annoying being on the east coast and watching games in LA or Portland that start at 10:00pm. It's even worse on Thursdays when TNT runs games that don't end until almost 1:30am. I hate that.

 

[Alpinemaps]

Anyway, the thing that bothered me the most is the sports schedule on weekdays. I'm a big NBA fan and it's pretty annoying being on the east coast and watching games in LA or Portland that start at 10:00pm. It's even worse on Thursdays when TNT runs games that don't end until almost 1:30am. I hate that.

Meanwhile, that's something I love about the west coast. The 'early' baseball games start at 4 PM, and the 'late' games start at 7 PM. All my games are done by 10 PM (usually).

And, of course, football - I get the 10 AM and 1 PM games. It's great. When I went back east last football season, I was really bored at 9:30 AM on a Sunday. Couldn't figure out why nothing was on TV. Then I realized I'm usually watching a pregame show at 9:30! It wasn't going to be on for another 3 hours.

 

[RoJoHen]

How does all of this work on the East Coast though? What's on at 7:30 where you are? Does Prime-Time run from 8 till 11? Does that mean those 9PM shows many enjoy at a reasonable hour aren't on till 10 there, forcing you to be up later?

Do you have to stay up till nearly midnight to watch the late-night local news cast?

Seems to be things are awful skewed over there against being able to watch TV/the news and still get to bed at a reasonable time.

It's never occurred to me. We always ate dinner about 7 or 7:30. Who wants to eat dinner during Prime Time? Because I'm not 6 years old, I consider 10 PM to be a perfectly reasonable hour :

I've never understood how anyone could eat dinner so late. Dinner = 5:30pm, no later than 6pm.

And even if dinner is later than that, who eats around the table anymore? My family always ate dinner in the living room in front of the TV, so prime time wasn't a factor.

 

[Lindley]

The central regions tend more to farm country, and farmers tend to have earlier days. Could be related.

 

[RoJoHen]

The central regions tend more to farm country, and farmers tend to have earlier days. Could be related.

No doubt.

 

[Small White Car]

I've never understood how anyone could eat dinner so late. Dinner = 5:30pm, no later than 6pm.

Where do you work, an elementary school? Or are you running in at 5:27 and microwaving something for 3 minutes?

 

[RoJoHen]

I've never understood how anyone could eat dinner so late. Dinner = 5:30pm, no later than 6pm.

Where do you work, an elementary school? Or are you running in at 5:27 and microwaving something for 3 minutes?

Well, growing up, I would get home from school somewhere between 3-4pm, and my mom would either be making dinner or (when she finally started teaching again) getting home around the same time as me, and therefore starting dinner. My dad would usually get home from work between 5-6pm, and dinner would always be ready for him.

Where do I work now? I'm a bartender, and I usually go into work around 4pm, so my traditional dinner hours don't apply. But the dinner rush at my restaurant is from 5-6:30pm, so other people definitely have the same idea in their head about dinnertime.

I also have a crazy metabolism, so a 5:30 dinner allows me time to have another meal later in the evening.

 

[Small White Car]

Hm, because of many, many complicated reasons I can either leave work at 4:30 and get home at 5:40, or I can leave at 5:30 and get home at 6:25.

I prefer to not spend the extra time in my car so I chose the 6:25 option. Generally you want to spend some time with the family so dinner tends to start being made around 7:00 or so which, depending on the meal, puts dinner anywhere from 7:15 - 8:00 PM.

So that's me. But yes, if I could get home at 5:00, I would. (But I'd have to get up at about 5:50 AM to do that, and that ain't happening!)

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, different jobs have different schedules. It is what it is. I mean, now that I live alone and have a bartending job, I usually don't get dinner until about midnight.

 

[Vanyel]

Well, for the east coast and central time zones they are getting their prime time at the same time actually. It is just the clocks are an hour later on the east coast. So I assume they all get their programming from the same satellite.

As I understand it it is the satellites and a bit of logic. If the entire country started prime time at the same time as broadcast on the East coast, then CT would start at 7PM, MT at 6PM and PT at 5PM. Broadcast for prime time shows are usually ready at least a week before the air date. On the day the shows are to be aired they are broadcast to the local stations for prerecording as a just in case type measure (A friend of mine used to work for the local FOX affiliate and we'd watch the Simpson's before it aired.), then the local station starts airing the broadcast feed and has the tape ready to go just in case they lose the satellite signal.

Any broadcast that originate on the West Coast, I'm not sure, but I would think it would be logical to assume a similar measure is used.

Talk shows like David Letterman or the Daily Show are usually recorded in the late afternoon and broadcast in the same fashion.

 

[Trekker4747]

Hm, because of many, many complicated reasons I can either leave work at 4:30 and get home at 5:40, or I can leave at 5:30 and get home at 6:25.

I prefer to not spend the extra time in my car so I chose the 6:25 option. Generally you want to spend some time with the family so dinner tends to start being made around 7:00 or so which, depending on the meal, puts dinner anywhere from 7:15 - 8:00 PM.

So that's me. But yes, if I could get home at 5:00, I would. (But I'd have to get up at about 5:50 AM to do that, and that ain't happening!)

Dinner at 7 or 8 at night?

I've always, always, always had it closer to 6 growing up.

 

[Ariadne]

Anyone know what they do in Mountain time? Is it also an 8-11 time block. If so, that would mean the networks would need to send out 3 feeds: East and Central; Mountain; Pacific. Why not group the mountain and pacific together like the east and central and then you'd only need to send out two feeds. Makes sense to me!

That's exactly what they do, like I said in the post just above yours.

 

[Lindley]

Dinner at 7 or 8 at night?

Absolutely. It's become a tradition with my roommate, actually: Dinner + DVD at 7:30 sharp.

Usually I stay at work until 7 anyway, since it allows me to get the necessary hours in even if I don't get into work until 10 or 11.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Well if you get off work at 5, it takes about half an hour to get home, then you relax for half an hour, then start cooking dinner, which can take upwards of an hour if you are using the oven, you end up eating at 7 pm. The only time my family ever ate earlier was when my mom wasn't working, so she would be able to start dinner whenever she wanted. Once she went back to work she got off at 3 because she worked at a school, but we still didn't eat dinner until later because my dad didn't get home until around 6:30-7 pm. If I had nothing else going on and could choose to eat whatever time I wanted, I think I would naturally gravitate towards 6 pm. But with work schedules that's just not possible.

 

[erastus25]

Anyway, the thing that bothered me the most is the sports schedule on weekdays. I'm a big NBA fan and it's pretty annoying being on the east coast and watching games in LA or Portland that start at 10:00pm. It's even worse on Thursdays when TNT runs games that don't end until almost 1:30am. I hate that.

Meanwhile, that's something I love about the west coast. The 'early' baseball games start at 4 PM, and the 'late' games start at 7 PM. All my games are done by 10 PM (usually).

And, of course, football - I get the 10 AM and 1 PM games. It's great. When I went back east last football season, I was really bored at 9:30 AM on a Sunday. Couldn't figure out why nothing was on TV. Then I realized I'm usually watching a pregame show at 9:30! It wasn't going to be on for another 3 hours.

Yeah, but 4:00 start times are too early! A lot of people aren't home from work yet, and, really, I'm not ready to watch sports at 4:00 on a weekday.