TV Time Zones: (how do you guys outside the central U.S. do it?) (1 Viewer)

[Marque D]

Ok I've had enough I've wounded this for far to long. How in the heck do people on the east and west coast watch TV (I'm lost on how Mt. works so I wont bother). First off I've got Dish Network and a Dish 6000 and I live in a CBS O&O area (DFW) thus I qualified for New York City's CBS 2 (WCBS).
But what I can't get is that all of you have to wait till 8 pm to watch primetime television. I mean what time do most of you go to bed. Do you just skip the nightly news that doesn't even come on until 11 O'clock? Surely you don't watch any of the late shows. Is it one of those things were every things like an hour behind, does school start at nine?
I think I could never get use to a time zone like that, but who knows I guess I'd just have to get use to it. BTW, If possible one of the best ways to get a different prospective on the world is to read or in this case watch other peoples news. I always find it interesting and enlightening to watch BBC and or read The Boston Globe.

 

[Jason Seaver]

The thing is, all the East-coast cities were built pre-automobile, so the traffic stinks, so we might not be home by seven...
Actually, I've found myself watching very few 10pm shows, and not just because Fox and WB have more interesting programs. If I were one to watch the news, the UHF stations generally have decent 10pm broadcasts.
Also, we're east-coast people. We're intense and can substitute caffeine for sleap.

 

[David Lawson]

Prime-time (that is, 10:00 PM) newscasts seem to be growing in popularity, so we don't necessarily have to wait until 11:00 for the nightly news. I do find it increasingly difficult to stay up until 11:35 to watch Letterman, to say nothing of Conan O'Brien.

I'd be more concerned about Indiana and Arizona residents, since they ignore Daylight Savings Time altogether (for the most part; Gary doesn't, due to its proximity to Chicago). Having prime-time start at 7:00 PM for half the year and 8:00 PM the other half would drive me crazy.

 

[Duane Robinson]

Sleep is for the weak. I never go to bed anytime before 2am, but that might just be because I'm a raging insomniac. I used to work nights when I took a semester off college so it kinda screwed up my internal clock. Now I sleep like 2 or 3 hours a night and then on the days I don't have school I just pass out and sleep nearly the whole day.

 

[Peter McDonald]

How I love being in Canada in the PST time zone... on Thursdays, for example, I can watch (the new) Friends at 3:30 PST, 5:00 PST, 7:00 PST, 7:30 PST, and 8:00 PST.
Amazing, isn't it? That's what happens when there aren't any rules that you can't watch out of market local channels
Peter

 

[Alan Benson]

I'm a California native, and on my first extended visit to the Central TimeZone I had the opposite question: how can people stand to watch their TV shows so early??
(By 8pm I'm almost always settled in for the evening, but around 7pm I'm still likely to be futzing around in the kitchen, or out running errands, or on the phone with family, etc...)
But after a few weeks of getting used to the "everything's early" TV schedule, I found I did like it just as well--and possibly better. Now, I'd probably be thrilled to have primetime from 7-10pm instead of 8-11pm...
And you're right--lots of folks who have to wake up early just skip the last hour of primetime; I don't know why that doesn't matter to the networks, but that's the way it's always been...
(Actually, I TiVo all my primetime shows these days, so it hardly matters when they're broadcast...)

 

[Derek Miner]

In case you're curious...
Mountain time zone prime time also starts at 7pm.
But whereas Eastern and Central time zones can share the same network feeds, Mountain stations require a special feed all their own. If you see something at 7pm Mountain, someone in the Pacific time zone won't be watching for another two hours.
Did I confuse you further?

 

[Brad Porter]

(I'm lost on how Mt. works so I wont bother)

In the mountain time zone we buy TiVos and watch the shows whenever we damn well please.
Brad

 

[Mario Bartel]

How I love being in Canada in the PST time zone...

I'm with Peter. When I got my little satellite dish, it was mostly to finally get an HD signal for my Toshiba HDTV, but time-shifting has completely changed the way I watch programs.

Survivor at 5 PM when I get home from work, Letterman at 8:30, Conan at 9:30. And when there are conflicting shows, I can watch one early, catch the other from a different time zone. I haven't had to tape a show on my VCR since getting the dish. The only problem is, I usually run out of tv by 10:30, as there's no longer anything worth watching.

If the CRTC regulatory body takes time-shifting away from Canadian satellite companies, I would be very sad.

 

[Steve Peterson]

I'd be more concerned about Indiana and Arizona residents, since they ignore Daylight Savings Time altogether (for the most part; Gary doesn't, due to its proximity to Chicago). Having prime-time start at 7:00 PM for half the year and 8:00 PM the other half would drive me crazy.

Arizona maintains MST year round and the prime-time viewing period starts at 7:00pm all year. It doesn't flip back and forth. The Navajo Nation does observe DST, but that's only for tribal government and due to the fact that about 1/3 of the reservation is outside AZ.

Steve "Who needs an extra hour of 107 degrees? Not us." Peterson

 

[Jack Briggs]

One thing I've noticed about the Central time zone: Whereas the rest of the U.S. sees the workday as "9-to-5," in the Central zone it's "8-to-4." Conversely, the prime-time TV schedule in the Central time zone is from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The rest of the country, however, is skewed later by an hour. Just the way it is.

If you haven't lived with a circadium rhythm attuned to the EST and PST zones, it must seem unusual. Yet this is how most people in the U.S. live. It's the Central time zone that's the oddball! So, we're used to the "late news" starting at 11 p.m., and the "prime-time" TV hours starting at 8.

 

[MickeS]

I keep wondering this myself, I definitely like prime time being 7-10. I went to the east coast a while ago, and had to stay up until 11:35 to watch the late shows, that would kill me. Not to mention having to watch "X-files" at 9 instead of 8 on sundays.

Arizona maintains MST year round and the prime-time viewing period starts at 7:00pm all year. It doesn't flip back and forth.

That's true for the network broadcasts, but for most cable channels it does indeed flip back and forth. I had gotten used to watching the east coast feed of HBO on Sundays, so "Six feet under" started at 7 pm. I was completely unaware that daylight savings time began yesterday, so it started at 6 pm instead. That meant I had to wait until 9 pm to watch "Six feet under", screwing up my schedule: I normally tape Simpsons at 7 while I watch 6FU, then I watch "X-files" at 8, but yesterday I was going to tape "X-files" too in favor of "Shackleton" on A&E at 8-10. Now I had to watch the first hour of Shackleton while taping X-files, then switch over to 6FU and tape the second hour of "Shackleton", since I can't tape the HBO feed (it's digital) while watching another channel... argh.
But now I now for next weekend. I love watching the HBO shows at 6pm in the summer, the earlier the better.
/Mike

 

[Janna S]

I'm on Alaska time - farther west than Pacific - but when I first moved here, Alaska had four time zones, and television programming was TWO WEEKS delayed. So I don't have any problem with being a few hours off Eastern. Anyway, it's light much of the night here in the summer, so all the late night shows are on in daylight then. (In the winter, of course, it's the reverse!)

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Everybody here does realize that the reasoning behind this all falls back to the Nielson ratings, right?

Glenn

 

[Steve Owen]

What I can never figure out is how people on the west coast watch live sporting events. For example, Monday night football starts at 9:00pm Eastern. Sheesh... that's 6:00pm pacific. I'm usually not even home from work by then... spend some time with the wife/kid, make and have dinner, do some household stuff, then by 9:00pm, it's time for the tube.

In fact most big prime-time sporting events start 8:00-9:00pm eastern. 5-6pm pacific? I can't imagine.

-Steve

 

[Janna S]

Steve: Many things are tape-delayed. The results (score, in the case of sports, or winners, in the case of awards shows) are already known by the time the tape shows here. That's why we don't answer our phones when we are watching certain shows - because some unhelpful person wants to call us and say, "Whaddaya think?" before we know what happened!

 

[Jack Briggs]

Well, MLB, NBA, and NFL games are not tape-delayed. One adjusts and plans accordingly. The Pacific Time Zone and I are at complete peace with each other.

Problems arise, though, come the presidential elections and East Coast-based network anchors making early winner's projections before the polls close here. Now, that's a bummer, and an unfair one at that (given that California has the largest electoral-college booty of 'em all).

 

[MickeS]

What I can never figure out is how people on the west coast watch live sporting events.

I always wonder the same thing, but about the east coast: "how can they stay up until midnight to watch the game"
/Mike

 

[Jason Seaver]

I've got to admit, I loved when baseball went to the unbalanced schedule. Those 10:35 starts in Anaheim or Seattle were murderous to next-day productivity.

 

[Trey Fletcher]

In fact most big prime-time sporting events start 8:00-9:00pm eastern. 5-6pm pacific? I can't imagine.

Simple. Imagine getting off work at 5pm and meeting up with some buddies at the nearest sports bar for the 6pm kickoff. Wings, beer, etc., and if the games sucks as usual, you're home at halftime (7:30), staying later if you choose. Even if I head straight home, I'm usually home in time for the kickoff, if not right after. Waiting until 9pm for a game to start seems absolutely absurd. No way am I staying up till midnight watching MNF (or most any sporting event for that matter). I guess it just comes down to everyone making the necessary adjustments and being happy with what they're used to. You can't imagine 6pm, and I can't imagine 9pm.

Oh, and as a native Arizonan, I also can't imagine DST!