Daylight robbery for network shows
The introduction of Daylight Saving is an unholy mess to viewers outside NSW, Victoria and Tasmania, causing headaches to breakfast programmes and voting for Australian Idol.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Now that we are well and truly into Daylight Saving some viewers will be aware that they are seeing their regular programming delayed -or in some cases- more delayed than usual.
Queensland viewers will have noticed that Sunrise and Today are now on a one hour time delay.
A year ago Today attempted to adjust for Queensland airing between 5 and 8.30am, with an extra Queensland-only half an hour. This year the show advises it is sticking with its regular 5:30 – 9am telecast with a delay for Queensland viewers. South Australian, Northern Territory and Western Australian already experience a broadcast delay.
Sunrise, similarly, is on a delay to those states from 6 – 9am too too, but advises traffic reports remains live. It also says it has a policy to go live in all markets for major breaking news. The Morning Show follows suit with delays outside AEDT. Mornings with Kerri-Anne, which broadcasts live four out of five days, will also experience delays in some states.
Other live shows to impose delays from this week include Rove, Dancing with the Stars, The 7:30 Report, World News Australia, TEN Late Night News and Lateline. ABC News Breakfast will be on a delay outside AEDT once it launches Monday November 3rd on ABC2.
For programmes that invite viewer interaction via email and SMS such as the morning programmes, it will be particularly problematic.
One of the shows deeply affected by the move to daylight saving is Australian Idol. Its Monday night verdict show, which invites viewers to vote until 8pm, was already complicated for interstate viewers. Idol invites viewers not on the east coast to check its website to save their favourite singer. With the introduction of daylight saving, now Queensland joins the ranks of SA and WA.
Idol’s website now advises voting times close:
Queensland – 6.30pm
South Australia – 7.00pm
Northern Territory – 6.00pm
Western Australia – 4.30pm
Voting on the website cuts off half an hour before phone SMS voting (ie. 4:30pm WA is actually 7:30pm Sydney).
Of course, another way of putting it is that only viewers in NSW, Vic and Tas can vote in “real time” with the Verdict show as it airs. No doubt some will view this as favouring contestants from those states over interstate singers. Queensland’s Chrislyn and Teale are the only two remaining contestants not resident to Victoria or New South Wales.
24 Responses
I hate Daylight Savings. It’s just an excuse for people to stay out longer. And what does it do to the rest of us? Farmers suffer, children going to school suffer. Everything is all over the place when it arrives.
Once it hits September, the rest of the year is all over the place and doesn’t seem to get better until March (maybe later).
The new voting system on Idol just isn’t working. The rest of the show is just pointless and if they open the voting lines a second time, I doubt many people will bother.
Zambora on October 7th, 2008 10:03 pm
Maybe a reason why Idol should scrap their ridiculous 2nd chance voting system.
The NEW revamped results show, makes Idol look more and more like popularity contest and is heavily biased towards young in certain states.
So voting for a favourite isn’t a popularity thing??
I just can’t see networks and advertisers comfortable with Idol and Dancing with the Stars airing at 4:30 on a Sunday in WA….
In WA we don’t get such a thing as a live TV show…ever! That’s regardless of DST adjustments, every program is a delayed broadcast despite having ‘Live’ supers on screen.
In this era of common PVR’s and chase-play recorders, I don’t know why the networks can’t broadcast everything live direct to every State and viewers who find the (earlier local) times don’t suit their lives can just time-shift programs themselves. That would give interstate viewers the choice of watching and participating live or as a delayed recording.
Yep, the Ten EPG (and only the Ten channels one) was an hour out in Melbourne as well yesterday (haven’t checked it today yet) which resulted in me missing Torchwood. Grr.
Maybe a reason why Idol should scrap their ridiculous 2nd chance voting system.
The NEW revamped results show, makes Idol look more and more like popularity contest and is heavily biased towards young in certain states.
Mind you, Ten makes $$$ from kids voting using sms (I suppose the kids know sms does cost money !)
David, love the fading curtains quip!
You’d think daylight saving was a new phenomenon? The comments that Queenslanders will have to wait an hour for their Idol results or to watch Rove is most puzzling! It’s ONE HOUR that you have to keep away from TV-related websites or forums, that’s all. And 2 months of daylight savings are in non-ratings so there’s not going to be much earth-shattering Idol or Rove then anyway. The news stuff I can almost understand, but then again the westerners have had 2-3 hour delays with national news programming forever and they seemed to have coped without much trauma.
Remembering the times that even VIC and NSW didn’t have DLS dates in alignment, so Victorians would get shows from Sydney an hour delayed, or vice versa. We lived.
they seem to fix up the EPG for the current day, probably along with them adjusting it with the specific minute times rather than the rounded half-hour times. but the rest of the 7 days have every program shifted back 1 place, sometimes this is a half hour difference, other times it is a 1 hour difference depending on the timeslots. do you guys think it is worth trying to get in contact with them about this or do you think they already know and are working on fixing it?
Itsross, I think the days of working 9 to 5 are long gone, you’ll find a lot of workers now work various times. A lot of people I know simply ask their supervisors if they can start at 8 and finish at 4, or whatever. Or if you work in construction or on the land you simply work when the sun comes up and goes down, so adjusting clocks seems a bit backward. I guess the main point is that it seems to have a dramatic effect on ratings, especially the 6pm news, lucky for the ABC though that it seems to have a positive effect on their news which is a far superior news service anyway, so that’s probably one positive that comes from it.
That Monday Night verdict show is a complete waste of viewing time … they could put Torchwood or Battlestar on and get better ratings!
And what a MESS they made of most of the ABBA Songs on Sunday night … only three decent perofrmances in the entire lot …
Jack!
I find it really annoying that ABC2 airs in Perth live so most nights it’s actually closed down by about 8pm.
Dan I think for most people daylight savings just means more daylight hours after work, which lets face it, is full of epic win.
Bindi – I myself am having issues with my EPG too – although with 10 and WIN – Prime is fine – it quite fustrating, I selected to tape Californication Sunday night from the EPG but missed it because the EPG was all messed up grrr…..
It is stupid David, in these days of centralized playout, that Queensland is left behind six months of the year. With the ever-increasing takeup of quality internet access, and the networks running forums on their sites, allowing for spoilers to be posted from down south…
Not to mention the fading curtains….
Love how some people refering to qld as staying in the dark ages for not implementing daylight saving. The fact that it was introduced in the 1900’s as a method to conserve energy during the war, wouldn’t suggest to me that states that continue to implement it are more advanced. The fact is, today their is no saving made to energy as people use air conditioning and other appliances, in fact we tend drive around a lot more when it starts, thus using more precious fuel. The term daylight saving is just ridiculus, it’s time shifting and as far as I’m concerned only states stuck in the dark ages still use it. I don’t know why the commercial networks don’t try and get rid of it of ignore it and have all the programming stay in the normal time.
Of course, Channel 10 could remedy this situation in Queensland by airing the monday night Idol show from 6.30pm (and even showing it live in NT and SA too). It’s not like it would be replacing anything that is rating well…….
I guess now Queensland knows how it feels to never see their favourite programs live, have to not go go on the internet fo fear of being spoiled of live results and not being able to participate in those ‘call into the program’ functions.
Its annoying but you get used to it
Sounds like these states need some more Fasttrack..I mean It’d be faster to download Rove off bit torrent in Perth, than to wait for it to air.
Yay for the Qld governments persistance in sticking to the dark ages and not re-introducing daylight saving.
Yay indeed.
Nine showing Today live into Queensland last time was a great move and am surprised they chose not to do it again. I actually watched Today during the Daylight savings period last time purely for the fact it was live. I remember watching a breaking news story on Today and then switching over to Sunrise to see the same breaking story again an hour later than it actually occured. Let’s hope they change their minds.
Hi Dave,
Your article states “Both WA and SA join daylight saving at the end of the month.”. However the South Australian’s have changed their clocks already (UTC+1030). Only WA change their clocks later that SA/NSW/ACT/Vic.
As a Queenslander, it can be annoying that we see shows an hour delayed but that is just a fact of living in a different time zone. I’m sure the SA/NT/WA people are used to it. At least some sport is shown live (e.g. NRL last Sunday)
Another reason for DLS in Qld, to save Idol LOL
i’m also noticing a bit of havoc happening with my EPG, only with 10 though not 7 or 9, each show seems to be bumped back one place. i don’t know why us QLD people are put out by this when we haven’t messed about with our clocks at all, they just stay exactly the same, yet because everyone else decides to monkey around with their clocks we get thrown out. and it makes it worse that here they don’t go on about daylight savings since we don’t do it so it is kinda hard to know when it has happened as we don’t have any ads or anything telling us like they used to when we did do it. most ppl find out the hard way when we make a call to another state within our working hours only to discover they have shut up shop early.