[SledgeHammer]

We all know a lot of broadcasters are sleazy in that they shift programming times to try to jack up ratings for the time slot.

Case in point... tonights episodes of Pawn Stars run from 7:01p - 8:01p. America's Got Talent runs from 8:00pm to 10:00pm. Because of that sleazy 1 minute time shift on Pawn Stars, I can't record AGT without sitting by my DVR waiting to hit the record button at 8:01pm??? (got another program that runs from 6:00pm to 8:35pm, but usually ends around 8:13pm)

Why does the DVR only allow you to start early / end late?
Why does the DVR not allow you to manually record stuff?

Heck... I'd even say the DVR should be smart and say... hmm... these recordings overlap by < 5 minutes... I'll alert the user AND offer the option to start the recording a few minutes late.

Sure you might not want to do that on a sitcom, movie, drama, etc... but for sports, reality shows (that start off with a 5 minute recap anyways)... sure, why not?

 

[RunnerFL]

Why does the DVR only allow you to start early / end late?

Starting late and ending early are not common requests.

Why does the DVR not allow you to manually record stuff?

It does.

 

[SledgeHammer]

It does.

It does?? I looked all over the place... I must be blind haha.

 

[Drew2k]

It does?? I looked all over the place... I must be blind haha.

Unfortunately you can't do it within the guide, but it's easiest if you tune to the desired channel before starting this, then go to Menu > Recordings > Manage Recordings and down to Manual Record.

 

[SledgeHammer]

Unfortunately you can't do it within the guide, but it's easiest if you tune to the desired channel before starting this, then go to Menu > Recordings > Manage Recordings and down to Manual Record.

Ah... one of those buried options . Much prefered how the Tivo used to let you just edit an existing recording and tweak the start and end times BOTH ways. Oh well... not gonna pay an extra $5/month just for that.

 

[TomCat]

We all know a lot of broadcasters are sleazy in that they shift programming times to try to jack up ratings for the time slot....

Speaking as a broadcaster, I think this is a misunderstanding. How on God's green earth does a one-minute shift in start time have any possible way of manipulating who tunes in to watch? If done to thwart a DVR recording, the network doing it has as much chance of thwarting a recording of a competing show as they do having their own show missed.

But I take no offense; I don't think I fall into the "sleazy" category, but then I have been called much worse on this very forum.

But if this practice "jacked" your ratings and you were a broadcaster, don't you think you would also be tempted to do the exact same thing?

The point is moot, because the reason they play around with the start times is not to "jack" ratings but to move particular sponsor's spots into shows that already have better ratings. For example, Castle gets good ratings, but the show that precedes it, typically DWTS, gets better ratings. Why not move that GM spot and that Dunkin' Donuts spot that you can sell for $300,000 each in Castle, 10 minutes earlier to where you can sell them for $400,000 each? So Castle starts at 10:01. Who really cares?

One of the things I have to keep reminding our local news deparment of when they start to outgrow my patience is that "your show is only there to separate the commercials". If broadcasters could get you to watch a show that was all commercials and no show, don't you think they'd do that? Don't you think you, as a broadcaster, would do that?

Oh, wait a minute. That exact thing happened on a major network just last night! A show all about commercials. What a concept. I'm still waiting not to be surprised by the all-commercial cable channel to debut. There are two dozen shopping channels right here on DTV that might even qualify, and most or your local stations run infomercials all night long.

If it's my network I say go for it. Move the spots; cash the checks; count the money on the plane. If its your network you say "no, we'll eat the other $200 grand because it might cause a DVR conflict on Monday night for 4% of viewers"? If so, you would not be running that network by the following Tuesday morning. Call me sleazy; I'll call you unemployed. At least one of us is definitely right. The other? A matter of opinion.

 

[Mike Bertelson]

Starting late and ending early are not common requests.<snip>

IIRC, this is one of the more popular Wish List requests.

I would love it if we could get that capability.

Mike

 

[SledgeHammer]

Speaking as a broadcaster, I think this is a misunderstanding. How on God's green earth does a one-minute shift in start time have any possible way of manipulating who tunes in to watch? If done to thwart a DVR recording, the network doing it has as much chance of thwarting a recording of a competing show as they do having their own show missed.

Don't they teach you that in broadcasting school on day one?

Ratings are based on 30 minute time slots. Neilsen doesn't care that a show ends at 7:59pm or 8:01pm. It cares about 7:00pm to 7:30pm, 7:30pm to 8:00pm and 8:00pm to 8:30pm.

Lets say your 7:00pm to 8:00pm show has 10M viewers, but your 8:00pm to 9:00pm show only has 1M viewers. By extending your first program to 8:01pm, you just dumped a bunch of extra viewers into the 8:00pm to 8:30pm bucket.

Yeah, I consider scripted shows / 1 minute time shifting to jack up ratings to be a sleazy practice. If its a live sporting event, thats something different.

But if this practice "jacked" your ratings and you were a broadcaster, don't you think you would also be tempted to do the exact same thing?

If everybody else was doing it, I guess I'd have to play along... if its one or two broadcasters doing it... probably not.

The point is moot, because the reason they play around with the start times is not to "jack" ratings but to move particular sponsor's spots into shows that already have better ratings. For example, Castle gets good ratings, but the show that precedes it, typically DWTS, gets better ratings. Why not move that GM spot and that Dunkin' Donuts spot that you can sell for $300,000 each in Castle, 10 minutes earlier to where you can sell them for $400,000 each? So Castle starts at 10:01. Who really cares?

Don't care much about the start time being shifted by 1 minute... but doing that to the end time screws up DVR recordings as I demonstrated in the original post for no good reason.

Your advertising reason could be another reason... I also know that TBS does the :05 / :35 start times so they can get their own "column" on the time grid. I remember when a few guides revolted and dropped the special column and started listing them with the 5 minute padding in parentheses.

One of the things I have to keep reminding our local news deparment of when they start to outgrow my patience is that "your show is only there to separate the commercials". If broadcasters could get you to watch a show that was all commercials and no show, don't you think they'd do that? Don't you think you, as a broadcaster, would do that?

Oh, wait a minute. That exact thing happened on a major network just last night! A show all about commercials. What a concept. I'm still waiting not to be surprised by the all-commercial cable channel to debut. There are two dozen shopping channels right here on DTV that might even qualify, and most or your local stations run infomercials all night long.

You can put on all the commercials you want... I'll never watch 'em. That's why god invented DVRs. As a matter of fact, if a show starts at 8:00pm and I'm home to watch it live... I'll usually just hit pause and go do something else for 15 minutes so I have enough buffer to skip your commercials.

If it's my network I say go for it. Move the spots; cash the checks; count the money on the plane. If its your network you say "no, we'll eat the other $200 grand because it might cause a DVR conflict on Monday night for 4% of viewers"? If so, you would not be running that network by the following Tuesday morning. Call me sleazy; I'll call you unemployed. At least one of us is definitely right. The other? A matter of opinion.

Well, haha... I doubt its as high as 4% lol. Ok... so why not have all the TBS and TNT shows start at :05. Then lets have History channel start theirs at :01. A&E can start theirs at :02. CBS will start @ :59, etc.

Guess what you have? Chaos and anarchy!!

 

[SledgeHammer]

Here is an article that demonstrates the effect "overruns" have on the ratings:

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...ntice-harrys-law-rise-extra-gcb-lower/128042/

Again... I don't really think its sleazy on an unscripted live event... but on a pre-recorded show that they know exactly how much air time, commercials, etc. there are... well, yeah, thats lame.

 

[Herdfan]

Starting late and ending early are not common requests. <snip>

IIRC, this is one of the more popular Wish List requests.

I would love it if we could get that capability.

IIRC, the original Ultimate TV had what they called soft padding where it would start a recording late if a tuner became available.

 

[mrdobolina]

I loved my Ultimate TV boxes!

 

[anopro]

Yep I still say Ultimate TV had all the other DVR's beat hands down and that was 11 years ago. If I remember correctly you could start and stop a recording down to the minute. But I could be wrong have not had mine since 2006 when 1 of the tuners went bad if I could do it over again I would have tried to fix it and still have it activated but no HD? well maybe not.

 

[SledgeHammer]

Yep I still say Ultimate TV had all the other DVR's beat hands down and that was 11 years ago. If I remember correctly you could start and stop a recording down to the minute. But I could be wrong have not had mine since 2006 when 1 of the tuners went bad if I could do it over again I would have tried to fix it and still have it activated but no HD? well maybe not.

Tivo's also let you adjust the start / stop time + / - at the minute level. I did end up using the manual record and it was a PITA because I couldn't tune to the channel before hand because both tuners were in use .

 

[dbronstein]

I also know that TBS does the :05 / :35 start times so they can get their own "column" on the time grid. I remember when a few guides revolted and dropped the special column and started listing them with the 5 minute padding in parentheses.

They started this way back in the old days when there were no on-screen guides and everyone used TV Guide or the paper to see what was on. This gave them a separate listing to stand out. With the on-screen guides, it doesn't have much of an effect, IMO.

 

[Laxguy]

IIRC, this is one of the more popular Wish List requests.

I would love it if we could get that capability.

+1

When you select a future show to record, hit Info instead of Record, then select Record. This at least allows an easy way to start early and end late, though there're no options to do the reverse.

 

[Wisegoat]

They started this way back in the old days when there were no on-screen guides and everyone used TV Guide or the paper to see what was on. This gave them a separate listing to stand out. With the on-screen guides, it doesn't have much of an effect, IMO.

I read an article interview with Ted Turner regarding the 5 minute late starts on TBS. Ted called it "Turner Time". He said it gave everyone 5 minutes to look around at all of the crap on other channels before deciding to tune in to TBS. That way they could see the shows from the start.

 

[TomCat]

...Ratings are based on 30 minute time slots. Neilsen doesn't care that a show ends at 7:59pm or 8:01pm. It cares about 7:00pm to 7:30pm, 7:30pm to 8:00pm and 8:00pm to 8:30pm.

Lets say your 7:00pm to 8:00pm show has 10M viewers, but your 8:00pm to 9:00pm show only has 1M viewers. By extending your first program to 8:01pm, you just dumped a bunch of extra viewers into the 8:00pm to 8:30pm bucket...

It doesn't work that way. Ratings are based on 15-minute periods which is a legacy holdover from radio, and just tuning in for a moment does not count. Much of it is still based on the decades-old diary method, where they ask you what show you watched from 9 PM to 9:15 PM, and from 9:15 PM to 9:30 PM (and could care less whether any show really started at 9:01).

Of course most people are too busy and can't be bothered to fill these diaries out, and hand them off to their kids, which is the only reason why the 14-34 demographic is important, ironically enough. 14-year olds have no buying power, but they have the power to shape the numbers simply because of the fact that they are the ones that really fill out the diaries. IOW, reality is once again trumped by perception; its not what was watched and by how many, its what is reported to have been watched by the kids who inherit and fill out the diaries with what they might have watched, or not watched at all.

Its a real house of cards. The entire business model of counting who watched and basing commercial costs on that is a case of the Emperor's new clothes; there is little if any accuracy involved. Everyone knows the system is rigged, but that is the only system they have, and it is the money machine, so they all embrace it and just don't mention out loud what a complete sham it all is.

The electronic measurements would also not be affected because DWTS ran over by a minute.

Bottom line, the reason they do it, sleazy or not, is $$$, to sell a few more spots at a higher rate (and a few less spots at a lower rate), and has nothing at all to do with increasing ratings, blunting the opposition, or thwarting your personal record pattern. All of that is just collateral damage.

 

[TomCat]

I read an article interview with Ted Turner regarding the 5 minute late starts on TBS. Ted called it "Turner Time". He said it gave everyone 5 minutes to look around at all of the crap on other channels before deciding to tune in to TBS. That way they could see the shows from the start.

That was indeed the corporate face Ted put on it at the time. And it makes sense, especially if you take the 15-minute time period into account. If you surf a dozen channels between 9 and 9:05, and then settle on TBS, you already know what there is to tune away to, and you know what you have is "better", so you will stay there for the next 10 minutes, which means TBS gets credit for that entire quarter hour, and no one else does.

This also blunted the start time of upcoming programs, the theory being that if you continued to the end of that program, to 9:35 or 10:05, then it was really too late to pick up the thread on shows already part-way over on competing channels, so you stayed put, hopefully for the rest of the night. It was the "Roach Motel" of programming strategies; you check in, but you don't ever check out.

The whole "guide" thing was probably just icing on the cake rather than a significant part of the strategy. Folks "sophisticated enough" to be using the guide more than casually were probably not playing TV roulette anyway, and were not just watching whatever the "least objectionable program" on at that time was (that's a real theory; google it).

Part of it was likely driven by the start time of MLB games. TBS carried some 160 Braves games a year back then to the entire continental US, and MLB games really don't get underway until 7-10 minutes after the hour; that was time that lots of folks tuned away to see what was on other channels. To keep them on TBS, they could end a Beverly Hillbillies rerun at 8:05 and by the time Skip Caray had said hello and given the lineups, it was time for the first pitch.

It was a reasonable concept, and a pretty bold counter-programming move by one of the few guys in TV with the balls to try something that bold. Too bad it really didn't work very well. It was kind of like New Coke (we give it a shot; if it bombs, we backtrack; no blood, no foul). Of course if it had actually worked, everyone else would be doing it, and that would dilute its effectiveness.

 

[TomCat]

Here is an article that demonstrates the effect "overruns" have on the ratings:

http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...ntice-harrys-law-rise-extra-gcb-lower/128042/...

That it does, Sledge, but not really very effectively. And a live sports overrun example is really beside the point of what is being discussed here, which is what is behind the strategy of offsetting start times on purpose for already-produced programs.

There is another trick broadcasters use called "going seamless", which means no commercials between the end of one program and the start of another. USA takes this to an extreme, as do others, when they run the final scene of one show in a little box on one side of the screen, with the upcoming show already starting in a little box on the other side of the screen. If its just ending and starting credits overlapping, its not too annoying. Otherwise, it really is annoying. That might cross the line to "sleazy", in my book. But it means more time for commercials, which get shoved into the first and last breaks along with the ones that "belong" there. Now that everything is nonlinear from a server instead of from a linear videotape with prescribed black holes built in to accommodate commercials, its as easy as typing a number on a spreadsheet.

Local news does this a lot, especially during ratings. That end break in prime is normally (not always) of higher value to customers than a break later in the local newscast, but if prime is not sold out a station will sacrifice that break to try to get you hooked on the newscast before you can tune away. Not sure if that really works all that well, but stations continue to do it all the time, especially if they are chasing the tail of some other, higher-rated newscast on another station. If you want all of the news, set your DVR a couple minutes early.

 

[Laxguy]

Mr. Cat, or Tom, or TomCat:

Thanks for these posts. Gives a clear perspective not many of us have....I appreciate 'em.

--
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
- Albert Einstein