The East Coast, Time and TV

[nevermore]

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.

9:30 AM on Sunday is for sleeping, not watching TV. Brunch if you must.

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.

Well, my mother generally got home from work about 6-6:30, later when one of her lines was being launched. In elementary and middle school I didn't get home most days until 5 because of various after-school rehearsals and sports practices and becasue my schools were both about 30-45 minutes away. Seems like most people I knew growing up had the same schedule....

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.

We didn't have a TV in the living room, just in the bedrooms and the big screen in the basement...

We ate at the table. Whether we did so together, I honestly don't remember. I think I generally read or did homework during dinner.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

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.

9:30 AM on Sunday is for sleeping, not watching TV. Brunch if you must.

That's what I was thinking. Wake up at noon and I have an hour to get ready for a 1:00 game. If the game was at 9:30 in the morning, I'd miss it.

 

[Squiggy]

Here in the central Time Zone prime-time TV starts at 7 in the evening and continues through 10 when the local news comes on. 5PM starts the local news, 5:30 is national news (except on Fox where it's sort of a local magazine-like show thing), 6PM local/national news and then 6:30 syndicated programing. Fox, at 9 runs an hour long-version of a local magazine/news show.

Anyway, this is how it is in the central time zone, national TV is off by 10 and then the news off by 10:30. If you watch the Letterman/Leno shows then you're up till almost midnight. Still not too unreasonable.

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.

I don't get it either. I was raised in CST and but I've been on EST since 2002.

Eastern network affiliates have pretty much this programming.

5a-7a: Morning News
7a-9a: National Morning News
9a-11a or 12p: Stories! (Price is Right on CBS)
11a or 12p: Midday News (30 min to 1 hour)
Afternoon: Syndication/Court room bullcrap/more stories

This is where it changes.

Starting at 4, more and more affiliates especially in large cities are airing news in blocks at 4-5, 5-6 and 6-6:30. Most stations then air their network news at 6:30. Some (like my local NBC affiliate) tape delay their local news until 7p.

At 7 pm most stations air Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Access Hollywood, ET, or 2nd run syndication. In DC the affiliates do this:

4
WRC-TV
NBC
"NBC 4"
4 PM: NEWS4 AT 4
5 PM: NEWS4 AT 5
6 PM: NEWS4 AT 6
7 PM: NBC NIGHTLY NEWS
8PM: PRIMETIME
11PM: NEWS4 AT 11
11:30: TONIGHT SHOW

5
WTTG-TV
FOX
"FOX 5"
4PM: JUDGE JOE BROWN
4:30: JUDGE JUDY
5PM: FOX 5 NEWS @ 5
6PM: FOX 5 NEWS EDGE @ 6
6:30: TMZ
7PM: THE SIMPSONS
7:30: SEINFELD
8PM: PRIMETIME
10PM: FOX 5 NEWS @ 10
11PM: FOX 5 NEWS EDGE @ 11
11:30: TMZ

7
WJLA-TV
ABC
"ABC 7"
4PM: OPRAH
5PM: ABC7 NEWS AT 5
6PM: ABC7 NEWS AT 6
6:30: ABC WORLD NEWS
7PM: WHEEL OF FORTUNE
7:30: JEOPARDY!
8PM: PRIMETIME
11PM: ABC 7 NEWS AT 11
11:30: NIGHTLINE

9
WUSA-TV
CBS
"WUSA9"
4PM: THE DOCTORS
5PM: 9 NEWS AT 5PM
6PM: 9 NEWS AT 6PM
6:30: CBS EVENING NEWS
7PM: 9 NEWS NOW TONIGHT
7:30: ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT
8PM: PRIMETIME
11PM: 9 NEWS AT 11PM
11:30: LATE NIGHT

 

[Franklin]

The notion of "prime time" is a bit of a relic any more. The main thing is the period is regulated differently than other TV times. The FCC created prime time for the networks, with non-prime time used by stations for local programming and non-network shows. Prime time was also supposed to be when the largest viewing audiences were supposed to be available.

The main reason why the eastern and central time zones have a different prime time (8-11 and 7-10) is because when shows were tranmitted by wire, it was cheaper for the stations in the central time zone to pick up the show as it was being shown in the east. But because the time difference was too much in the pacific time zone, the shows were taped and shown in "eastern prime time" of 8-11 in the west. The mountain zone stations taped the shows, too, but took the central's 7-10 as the prime time slot.
Cable and satellite pretty much follow suit with prime time out of tradition.

 

[Holdfast]

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.

You know, as an amusing unrelated anecdote, historically, dinner times were a pretty strong class identifier.

Upper classes tended to have dinner later than the middle classes, who in turn ate the evening meal later than the working classes. You still see the effect of this tradition in many better restaurants - the classic peak reservation time is 7 for 7.30 or 7.30 for 8... and funnily enough, lots of people who normally eat earlier tend to book later times when going out for a nice meal.

(if you go back even further in time, the class/dinner time situation shuffles around a bit though, for various reasons)

 

[PKTrekGirl]

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. As is 12:00. Or 1:00. 2:00 is probably pushing it for most, I'll grant that.

Maybe we just stay up later on the Coasts?

Personally, I think the difference got started originally because of the cultural differences between the coasts (which are fairly similar in many respects in their rather business/urban identities and the habit of eating dinner later in general to accommodate big city commuting) and all those middle states full of farmers who had to get up at 4 am to milk cows.

On the coasts, the cow milkers are alot fewer and further between.

In fact, I would venture to say that the majority of people up and about at 4 am on the coasts are more likely to still be up from the night before than they are to be up because they are Just That Bright-Eyed And Bushy Tailed.

 

[RoJoHen]

Personally, I think the difference got started originally because of the cultural differences between the coasts (which are fairly similar in many respects in their rather business/urban identity and the habit of eating dinner later in general) and all those middle states full of farmers who had to get up at 4 am to milk cows.

On the coasts, the cow milkers are alot fewer and further between.

And lunch was called dinner, and dinner was called supper.

I wonder when that changed. Lunch came out of nowhere, and dinner and supper merged to become the same meal.

 

[Sephiroth]

you think thats rough, I live in the mountain time zone,we don't even know when anything will be on

 

[Holdfast]

Personally, I think the difference got started originally because of the cultural differences between the coasts (which are fairly similar in many respects in their rather business/urban identity and the habit of eating dinner later in general) and all those middle states full of farmers who had to get up at 4 am to milk cows.

On the coasts, the cow milkers are alot fewer and further between.

And lunch was called dinner, and dinner was called supper.

I wonder when that changed. Lunch came out of nowhere, and dinner and supper merged to become the same meal.

I hinted at this in my earlier post but basically, lunch was invented by ladies who got bored & hungry waiting for their men to return from work so they could have dinner. So dinner got pushed later and later in the day and lunch became the middle meal instead.

Supper was traditionally a light bite before retiring for the night around sundown, but when dinner became an evening meal, supper was also pushed later (a development facilitated by cheaper internal lighting at night).

 

[RoJoHen]

In that case, I think I need to invent a name for my 5th and 6th meals of the day.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

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

Bingo.

 

[Holdfast]

In that case, I think I need to invent a name for my 5th and 6th meals of the day.

Titbit and Snark.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

In that case, I think I need to invent a name for my 5th and 6th meals of the day.

Titbit and Snark.

Nah, there are two perfectly good names already - Second Breakfast and Elevenses.

 

[SmoothieX]

Jeaopardy! is on at 7:30 by me, and that is all that matters.

 

[Captain Ice]

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.

Arizona is tricky here.

Local broadcast stations all start primetime at 7. Period. Nightly news at 10 (except for Fox at 9).

Cable gets interesting. Some stations choose to follow the lead of the broadcast stations and show everything at the same time. Others will shift their shows an hour later. Usually we only know which stations will do what by checking the guide.