Allow me to explain as best I can.
I watched “must see TV” tonight, and have it on again (on the West Coast) stations thru the magic of satellite TV (3 hours later of course).
My question is, do you folks on the west coast feel “left out” or “behind” in any way?
I visited San Diego once. It was so weird to me to be shopping, just before having dinner when I noticed the hockey game on TV. But wait, that game doesn’t start until 7:00, what’s it doing on at 4:15??
So, when big “TV events” happen like say the finale of the first “Survivor”, or something similar, do you guys (and gals) fell “out of the loop”? (Especially since the advent of the Internet, and instant global coverage).
What about New Year’s Eve? Do you watch ‘our’ time change, then your own 3 hours later?
No, not at all. However, I do find it strange that anyone would wait up until midnight (or later) watching the end of Monday Night Football!
I remember talking with a friend from NY about their Sunday rituals during football season and they were completely different.
His: Get up, go to church, go to breakfast, go by the store and pick up beer and meat for the games, and make it back to see the 1:00 pm kickoff. Watch football all afternoon and evening and go to bed after the ESPN late game.
Mine: Roll out of bed at 9:30, grab beer leftover from the night before, get a chorizo burrito from the local taqueria for breakfast on the way to a friend’s house for 10:00 am kickoff. Watch football all afternoon and then maybe go out for a late dinner or drink when the ESPN game is over (usually about 8:30 pm).
Funny how much difference three hours makes.
As far as the other stuff, I never really felt left out of anything. Although it is kind of weird (and stupid) to watch Dick Clark drop the apple in Times Square three hours after it has actually happened.
First time I felt out of the loop was working a fishpick line in Kodiak 1980. Thats when I heard Ronald R. was elected President of the US when we still had 6 hours of open poll booths.
Oh yeah, I feel left out. Giving me an inferiostory complex.
I think the whole world should go on ZULU time. We can handle it. Might take a while getting used to. Talk about real time.
They would have to change all the time clocks of the world.
I loved it when I lived on the West Coast. Of course, now that I’m East Coast, I get to be part of the liberal East Coast Media Elite, or whatever, and watch my games til 2am, as God intended.
California’s not so bad. If they show NFL live - as opposed to tape delay - in Hawaii, then those east coast games are gonna get started around 6 or 7 AM local time. Grab your Spam and take a seat in front of the TV!
I’m a former resident of the Eastern Time Zone now living in California. I do miss the days when I could catch both NFL games without having to get up ridiculously early.
On the other hand, whenever the announcer of the late game says that this show or that will be shown immediately after the game “except on the West Coast,” I feel kinda special – he’s talking about ME now!!!
I hate the time-shifting of the Olympics. It’s bad enough that U.S. coverage is abysmal and taped for later broadcast; but having to avoid news broadcasts for three hours so I don’t hear who won is a pisser.
I also wish national elections would end at the same time. Let the east coast start and end three hours later.
What’s really confusing TV wise is being in the Mountain Time Zone. Some of the Cable/Satellite networks have both and East Coast and West Coast schedule, others have only one feed, on Eastern Time.
When I see a promo for a show I want to watch, and they say “Tonight at 8:00”, I’m never sure whether to watch at 6:00 (for an East Coast feed) or 9:00 (for a West Coast feed).
I remember being confused when people complained that football pre-empted Futurama. It took me a few seconds to figure out because hey, football is always over by 5! 6 at the latest! Futurama doesn’t start until 7!
I like PST much better than MST. Like Fat Bald Guy said, it’s hard to figure out what is going to be onwhen…
I second feeling left out in Mountain Time. I don’t have satalite, just digital cable. Now, 90% of the channels run their programming on east coast time, a few on West coast time, and only the network/local stations run on mountain time. So some shows are on two hours earlier then they say, some are on an hour later, and no one ever bothers to mention 9pm eastern/8pm central/7pm Mountain.
Ok, so it’s really not a big deal at all to figure out the time difference yourself. But still, it’s the priniciple of the matter. It’s as if we dont’ exist. When I lived on the west coast I didn’t feel left out at all though, since everything except for live sports is technically shown at the same “time” as it is on the east coast. I never really spent time online or cared about getting a show “spoiled” since it had already been aired - so that part was a non-issue for me.
What I never understood was how they did the news.
Do Tom Brokaw and Dan Rather do the news again 3 hours later, or do they assume nothing big will happen ? What about the Today show ?
I was so much happier on the West coast. Baseball games ended at a reasonable hour, I could actually watch MNF without being up until super late (which isn’t really a problem now but would have been in high school, say)… In closely disputed elections, I wasn’t up until, say, 3 in the morning waiting to find out what had happened, and so on. I mean, I’m a night person, but this is ridiculous!
I don’t watch sports, so I can’t speak to that. Everything else is fine, though. I like getting to watch Letterman at 9:30.
It does get confusing in my part of southern california because half the stations here show stuff on Arizona time. That means calculating east coast vs. west, factoring in daylight savings time, and then figuring which stations are from Arizona and will be off by an hour.
