Television scheduling

Television is a complicated topic. While it is easy to attack “television” and its effect on society, there are many positive aspects to television -- but that’s not what I intend to write about.

Good or bad, television is currently a part of our society. It would be wise to acknowledge the importance of television in our society, and also to examine aspects such as scheduling, the importance of which I believe is largely overlooked. (I acknowledge that “importance” is a complicated topic, and to a certain extent in the eye of the beholder.)

For one thing, I suspect the differences television scheduling in different time zones have some marked effects on peoples day-to-day lives. Growing up in the Midwest, “prime-time” television was from seven to ten in the evening, and at ten came the local news. On the east coast, prime time is from eight to eleven, with the local news at eleven. It is difficult for me to believe this does not have a significant effect, causing people in the different regions to live according to a different schedule. Even people who never watch a moment of television are affected by the fact that OTHER people watch television, and watch it according to the networks’ schedule.

This is the time of year when programming executives most often feel compelled to change their schedules. The most fanfare is given to brand-new programs, but it is also a time when older programs are canceled or shifted to different time slots, often on different days. All of this has an effect on daily life, especially when dealing with exceptionally popular programs. Again, even people who never watch a moment of television are affected when millions of people who have been watching a program on one night of the week abruptly shift to watching it on another night of the week.

While many scheduling changes are made at the national network level, local programming executives also make life-altering changes, though these changes are even harder to document and study. I believe that when a local channel that has been broadcasting something like “Seinfeld” or “MASH” every weeknight at a certain time suddenly switches to broadcasting “Friends” or “Everybody Loves Raymond”, this also has appreciable effects on the day-to-day lives of people in the broadcasting area -- though without studying this phenomenon, I cannot say what these effects might be.

I am not ashamed to admit that I enjoy television. Among other things, I enjoy using television as a sort of clock or calendar, to mark distinct points in the day or week. My elderly mother is losing many of her cognitive abilities, but she still knows that at four o’clock on weekdays she will watch “Jeopardy”, but NOT on weekends.

Although I watch less television now than sometimes in the past, I continue to watch television late at night as I end my day and prepare for sleep. Most of the channels I favor late at night show the same programs every weeknight, so I can strive to finish my daily activities in time to watch “Star Trek” or “Jay Leno” or whatever. I am disappointed, sometimes severely, if I sit down to watch one of these “usual” late-night shows and find that for some reason it is not being broadcast (in particular, one channel often changes their regular late-night schedule to show sporting activities). And, just as my mother is disappointed by the lack of “Jeopardy” on weekends, I am disappointed by the absence of my “usual” late-night shows on weekends.

To be honest, I suppose I would prefer that the channels that show the same programming FIVE days a week would show it SEVEN days a week, but I realize that in general, they are not going to DO that. However, I remain puzzled by the fact that these channels consider late night Friday, and the early AM hours of Saturday, to be “weeknight”, while late night Sunday (and the early AM hours of Monday) are considered “weekend”. For most Americans, Friday night is part of “the weekend”. To be fair, Sunday night may also be considered part of “the weekend”, but the later part of Sunday is spent preparing for a weekday, as is the later part of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, while the later part of Friday is spent preparing for ... more of the weekend. As far as I am concerned, it makes much more sense, and would be much better, to have the “weeknight” programming late Sunday night and early Monday morning, and show the “weekend” programs late Friday and into Saturday morning. Perhaps the most controversial thing I have to say regarding this topic is that I truly believe that if the television programming executives were to make this change, we would live in a better, happier, more productive world.

I admit that various technical developments, such as the increase in the number of television “channels” from three to hundreds, recording capabilities such as VCRs and DVRs, and the ability to watch things “on-demand”, make these scheduling issues decrease in importance -- though they raise an entirely NEW set of issues for society, to be addressed in a future posting.

Truth is complicated.