I’ve lived in the Eastern Time zone all my life so prime time started at 8 for me always. That seemed good. Seven o’Clock always seemed too early. I’m rarely done with dinner by 7 and sometimes I’m not even home from work by then. And on the other side, prime time ending at 10 just seems like a waste of real estate. There’s a whole other hour left.
For people that live in Central and Mountain and have a 7-10 Prime time, do you hate it and wish it started later like ours and Pacific’s do? Or is that just how it always was and you’re used to it? Or do you prefer it? Just curious.
I grew up on Eastern Time and moved to Central Time at the age of 25. 26 years later 7:00 still seems like too early to start prime time, especially in the summer. The worst thing is that everyone around here goes to bed at 10:00 and thinks I’m a crazy night own if I stay up until 11:00 or 12:00; most jobs start at 8:00 a.m. too.
I grew up in Central Time and I guess I’m used to it. I’m almost 60 years old now, but when I was a kid of 11 my favorite show, Lost In Space, started at 6:30PM, and that was a major network show.
I remember that timing so distinctly because on June 8, 1966, a Wednesday, I was watching LIS, and I was annoyed because the local weather kept breaking in with storm warning updates. Just before the end of the program the city sirens went off, for a tornado warning, and everyone had to go to the basement while a major tornado ravaged the city.
I’ve lived in both Eastern and Central time zone all my life (sequentially, not simultaneously). Whatever the timing, you get used to it. I personally have no opinion because, honestly, I don’t watch much prime time TV.
I’ve never had a problem with it. Six is naturally when evening starts, and thus great for the evening news, and then, an hour later, you start Prime Time (with a gameshow like Wheel of Fortune in between for transition) And then, at 10:00, you get the news, giving you time to either go to bed at 10:30 or a choice to stay up and watch a late night show. An hour later would seem too late.
Granted, none of this has mattered to me in the slightest since we cut the cord. This was the first time I’d thought about it in a long time. Things like “8/7 Central” are nostalgic now.
Yeah, if you’re used to it then it seems bizarre to have to wait until 8pm for prime time to start and 11pm for the news to come on. You’d eat dinner in the 6 o’clock hour then the supposedly good TV was starting just as you were finishing with dinner and the dishes. I’ve never been annoyed at it being “early”, I wondered how others handled it starting so “late” – who wants to spend an extra hour watching game shows and old syndicated sitcoms? I suppose it’s largely a moot point these days with DVRs and On Demand and all that though.
I lived in Central time until I was about 27, then in Eastern after that. Central is nice because you can get to bed early, and it was actually possible to watch Carson and part of Letterman without losing too much sleep. When I first moved into Eastern time, the 7:00 hour with local TV programming was really strange. To me it seemed like getting an extra 6:00 hour every day. I’ve adjusted and now I prefer Eastern.
Not a problem at all. The only weird thing is those early morning news like shows are supposedly live but one hour delayed.
I don’t get how late night shows survive in other time zones. Even as a teenager I rarely stayed up to see the end of Letterman, who came on after Carson in those days. But to think he would have just been beginning at that hour for people in the Eastern time zone.
I loved Letterman but it was pushing it as it was. Maybe I would have gotten in the habit of taping it every night.
I grew up in Central and moved to Eastern as an adult. I’ve been here ten years and still haven’t adjusted to the idea that I should really be winding down my evening before the news starts. And springing forward is an absolute nightmare for me every year. But I don’t think either would be annoying to someone who always lived in the same time zone. What is really annoying is living near the line.
Yeah I suppose with DVRs and streaming etc. the question is almost an anachronism but it popped into my head and I was curious. Enjoying the feedback so far.
I grew up in Saskatchewan where they don’t observe daylight savings time. So in the summer, American channels like NBC, ABC, etc. would be showing prime time shows starting at 6 p.m. local time! That seemed too early to me, but it did make it easier to stay up for Late Night with Conan O’Brien at 10:30, for instance.
Here in south Florida, we have one local news at 10pm, and the rest of the channels at 11pm.
You can sometimes notice the signs…if all times are relative - “It’s five past the top of the hour” - it’s a show designed to be rebroadcast at a different time.
Johnny Carson was mega-popular when I was growing up, and I couldn’t imagine living on the coasts where he didn’t come on until 11:30. If you watched the monologue and a single guest, you’d be up until midnight! Who can stay up until midnight and then go to school or work the next morning???
I too remember when Central prime time started at 6:30. That’s when all my favorite shows came on: Combat!, Time Tunnel, Batman, Rat Patrol, The Avengers, It Takes a Thief, and so on.
I was actually a bit put off when they moved it back to 7:00 pm in the early '70s; I just didn’t see the point. I also could never understand how people in the East could stand waiting until 11:30 to watch Johnny Carson on weeknights.
I’ve lived in Central Time all my life, so I guess I’m just used to it. I just couldn’t imagine having to wait until 8 pm for the “good” shows to come on, and 11 for the news. By that time I’m ready to go to bed. I can’t imagine staying up past 11:30 for late-night TV.
It’s just the way it was (is). I’ve lived and worked on Eastern Time too, and the time diff. never bothered me. There may have been a day or two of adjustment, but after that, it just was.