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What to do about those late starting times?

Is it time to start logging late starting times by networks? TV Tonight needs your help.

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I’ve been thinking about the ongoing problem of late starting times, which have been a bug-bear by viewers since longer than I can remember.

As we know it’s getting worse.

So I’ve been wondering about ways that TV Tonight can facilitate the audience’s frustration with this practice and I’m thinking that “crowd-sourcing” is the answer….

I’d like to explore the idea of readers tracking the starting times of prime-time shows, as a way of highlighting those that are the worst offenders.

This would mean readers logging information such as:

Name of Show
Channel
City
EPG starting time*
Print TV Guide starting time*
Network promo starting time*
Network online guide starting time*
Actual starting time

*choose one or multiple

These options would give readers the chance to express the time they were led to believe a show was to start versus the actual time it started. In time I suspect it would build up a pattern. Whether that leads to any improvement is another matter…

Before I kick this off I thought I would seek some input from Readers on whether you think this is worthwhile, how you see it working and what other variables need to be taken into consideration. It will also need a name if it is to become a permanent fixture (not sure yet).

I would probably be looking to kick this off post-Olympics. I don’t think it makes sense to host it when it’s not an even playing field.

This would also be separate from the annual Audience Inventory which is due to kick off soon.

Thoughts?

57 Responses

  2. I’ve been watching this for a while, the time creep, and have found that the average time difference between scheduled start time and actual start time is 12 minutes or thereabouts. Though when The Good Wife started back on Ten this year there was one time that it started early, like almost 15 minutes early for a couple of episodes!

    My only question is whether this would actually go somewhere for action to be taken? All good and well to do something like this but who would it be sent to and would action be action to rectify the problem?

    Having worked in radio in a past life I know that it’s all due to ads being placed and it’s usually the popular shows that suffer.

  4. Excellent idea. I just don’t understand what the channels achieve buy doing it. they are great at making sure their ad breaks are in sync with one an another tho, it as if they don’t like viewers to channel surf during the ad break.

  5. I’ll admit I like the EPG. But sometimes it doesn’t work. On a bad weather day the Ch 10 (including the multi-channels ) EPG doesn’t work. Also sometimes on the weekend they don’t update it. So even that isn’t reliable. And it isn’t always Ten. Although they have one of the weakest signals other than Ch 31 in my area.

  6. A great idea though keep it simple – actual start time and promo/published start time. Don’t let the networks justify their contempt for viewers by saying “well, we updated the EPG”.

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