I’ve asked this question a few times before on the board here just about this time of year and can never get myself a real answer. It makes my head hurt to think about it too much.
What happens in TV Programming when we lose/gain an hour? Do they repeat the same programming during what would have been the 2-3am program? Do they throw in some random program during the extra hour that doesn’t even get listed in TV Guide?
I’m not sure, but I think it varies enormously on the type of station. Some channels still don’t stay on the air all night, so they’re not particularly affected.
I’m pretty sure that some would take advantage of the extra hour to throw in something unusual that wouldn’t cost them much, or maybe to run a slate of late-night movies that wouldn’t ordinarily fit in their late-night-movies time slot. Shows showing old syndicated reruns all night would probably pick one, show an extra episode, possibly in sequence with the regularly scheduled one. Similar considerations apply to losing an hour… either work around it or pick one hour and zap it away.
On a technical level, time schedules involving the ‘fall back’ usually list midnight, 12:30 am, 1 am, 1:30 am, 1 am, 1:30 am, 2 am, 2:30 am and so on without particular explanation. It isn’t that hard to follow.
But anyway, if you check tv listings (especially electronic listings), they actually list 1-2 twice. Every station does it’s own thing - given the hour, a lot of stations are showing paid programming anyway, it’s not that big of a deal, they sell an extra hour to someone. An extra hour of news is also pretty easy to schedule in. Or some stations play an extra hour of syndicated content. Some show a movie. TV programming at that hour isn’t cutting edge/must see. It isn’t that hard to work something extra in.
I was awake the other night and was scrolling through the onscreen listings by my cable company. It was all messed up in places. Some of the channels were showing what was on the listing, others were an hour ahead. It was fun to poke around and see who was accurate and who was behind.
To sort of answer your question AMC was showing The Omen and the online listing said it was only 45 minutes long, not an hour and a half.
You mean an Old 99er doesnt know weve covered this one before?
Its back in the archives.
The one show I saw a few years back was (durring the “extra” hour) was called “Time and Again” but was actually a documentary on a historical event, and what impact that historical event has today.
It was an hour.
If I may bump, I have an answer to this, as I work in broadcasting.
This weekend, we scheduled an hour block with no commercials called Daylight Saving. Master control set the clocks forward at that time, and we aired the next program. So, in essence, we “skipped” an hour.
In the fall, we schedule a two hour show in a one hour time slot. Programming works this in such a way that we have two “2 ams” or some other time, and that’s when the clocks go back.
However, my DVR has not been able to handle the changeover to DST for the Game Show Network and my 3:30 am recordings of “What’s My Line?” aren’t happening.
Turned out my DVR was fine. But the Game Show Network got moved to a different tier of service that I don’t get. It’s part of the Sports Group, where NBA TV and such reside.
The mind reels at the person who thought of that idea.