TV Schedules

Scheduling Programmes on TV

Television is finding itself in an increasingly competitive environment. Not only do channels have to compete against each other for viewers' attention, but against videogames, DVDs, the Internet and other home entertainment options. In response to this, TV channels now have a much increased sense of brand identity (think of all the channel ident sequences you see played so much on MTV or BBC2) and hope to create channel loyalty amongst viewers. The main way of achieving channel loyalty is through tight scheduling, so that a viewer has few excuses to change to another channel, and plenty of reasons to keep watching. TV schedulers aim to gain maximum possible audience share ie a greater percentage of viewers watching at a particular time than any other channel.

Segmentation

Traditionally, television is a mass medium, which means that it has the difficult task of trying to please the majority of the people, most of the time. However, with the advent of satellite and digital broadcasting, television has become increasingly segmented. This means that there are specialist channels transmitting a narrow type of programming for specific segments of the mass audience. These segments can be identified by interest or by demographics. For example:

Channel	Audience
The Cartoon Network	Children
MTV	12-25 year olds
ESPN	Sports fans ie mostly male, 18-49
CNN	ABC1s

This makes it easy to find advertisers - if they want to attract the attention of a specific target audience then they can find them watching a specific channel.

As the century progresses, and viewer choice increases, it is likely that TV channels will target smaller and smaller segments of audience. The term "broadcast" will become obsolete, replaced by "narrowcast". This raises all sorts of issues - mainly to do with finance. Segmented TV is minority TV. If TV channels can only target specific segments of an audience, how will they fund their programming? Will they rely on endless reruns and cheap filler TV, while demanding pay-per-view for expensive events?

Time Zones

In the meantime, the main terrestrial broadcasters still schedule TV programmes for a mass audience. They try to air programming that will be popular with a large number of people, but they pay careful attention to satisfying a range of tastes - the TV programme has not yet been invented that EVERYBODY likes - by providing a variety of shows. Careful attention is also paid to who is watching when - the TV day is divided into distinct zones:

Time	Types of Show/Audience
0600-0900 Breakfast Television	News & Current Affairs to tell people what has been going on in the world as they slept Children's TV - particularly at weekends and during school holidays - to give parents a bit of peace first thing in the morning Celebrity interviews and showbiz news - adds human interest to current affairs programming
0900 -1600 Daytime Television	Designed for the relatively small audiences watching TV at home during the day. These people may not have much of a disposable income, but advertisers are still interested in them Cheap "filler" TV as there are a great many hours to be filled - eg talk shows, fashion makeovers, old movies, imported soaps & serials quiz shows etc Preschool children's TV - and parents watch this too Lunchtime news provides a bit of gravitas Shows aired at primetime earlier in the week may be repeated during the day Repetitive structure to the day - often daytime shows are on at the same time every weekday to attract viewers consistently
1600 - 1900 Teatime TV	older children's programmes, aired as they arrive home from school early evening soaps, especially those aimed at teens pop music program's (teen audience again) Cookery programmes Early evening news bulletins (news lite)
1900-2300 Primetime TV DON'T FORGET THE WATERSHED!!! (9pm in UK, 8.30pm in HK)	Soap operas - consistently popular shows that attract an audience to a channel and hopefully keep them there for the rest of the evening Sitcoms Drama serials & series (especially those involving crime) Costume or historical dramas Documentaries Big Movies Evening news - the serious, full-strength bulletins Chat shows involving celebrities and politicians Important sporting events Primetime TV is very competitive - it is when TV channels can charge most for advertising slots, and they need to prove that they have the viewers to justify this.
2300 - 0600 Late night/overnight programming	Programmes with a controversial content (sex and/or violence) may be aired at this time, as the viewers who are most likely to complain have gone to bed. Also, children are unlikely to be watching Late night talk shows, involving academic discussion, or controversial figures & topics (sex, drugs, violence) Live sport from other parts of the world Pop music programmes Adult documentaries Educational programmes (eg the Open University - the idea being that people can set their videos) Old movies News updates

This is just a general guide to the programming zones that you might find on terrestrial TV round the world - where terrestrial TV broadcasts 24 hours a day. Have a look at some TV schedules from different countries to see if you can spot the patterns.

European TV - what's on in Azerbaijan? Where is Azerbaijan? Geography lessons courtesy of tvshow.com

US TV - try using the zip code 10001 for New York, 60601 for Chicago, 75201 for Dallas and 94101 for San Francisco

Schedulers' Tricks

TV schedulers need to attract an audience at the beginning of the day, and keep then watching right up to the end. This is achieved by:

airing trailers for shows later in the day

pre-echo - putting a new, or less popular show on before a popular one in order to catch the viewers that may tune in early

hammocking - putting a new, or less popular show on between two popular shows so that viewers do not bother to turn off or over and watch the new show

inheritance - putting a new, or less popular show on after a popular show, in the hope that viewers will remain transfixed by their TV set

Ratings

The test of any TV schedule's success cannot be measured simply in ratings. TV stations look at ratings over a whole time zone, using sophisticated tracking software to find out who tuned in when, and when they tuned out. TV companies increasingly fight for audience share, keen to claim as large a slice as possible of the available pie.