Television Scheduling

I

Introduction

Television Scheduling, the process of deciding where to transmit a television programme, its duration, and the time at which it should be shown. Television scheduling is a considerable skill in its own right. It aims to target the audience for particular programmes, to maintain a balance between programmes, and to define the television programming on offer at any one time.

In its basic form, the schedule is a grid, dividing the broadcast day into slots of 30 minutes. Schedulers start each season with a budget and (unless starting up a channel from scratch) with a number of programmes and series already commissioned. In the UK, the nature of the schedule is also determined by licensing obligations. Certain generalist broadcasters (such as the BBC and ITV1), whether funded by the licence fee or advertising, are obliged to fulfil a public service remit by carrying a proportion of news and current affairs, educational, and religious programmes, which must be accommodated within the schedule structure.

II

The Schedule and Audience Address

Television stations organize their scheduling procedures in different ways, although, generally, to take account of the daily routines of the audience; the calendar year is often partitioned according to distinct methods for spring, summer, autumn, and winter. For example, as it grows darker in the evenings and the number of hours people spend watching television increases, key series are launched. The days are usually partitioned, too, into breakfast, daytime, early evening, peak-time, late-night, and night-time programmes. Normally, children’s programmes are shown mainly after school, when children are able to watch, but during holidays and half-term the pattern alters to maximize the availability of the child audience. On commercial channels, this in turn works in dialogue with the demands of advertisers, who then target the child audience in the commercial breaks. Another example of how television scheduling is shaped by assumptions about the audience is the “watershed”. On terrestrial television, there is a long-established policy of having a pivotal point in the evening’s schedule—a “watershed”—before which programmes should be suitable for a general audience, including children. The 9 p.m. watershed reminds broadcasters that particular care should be taken over the inclusion of explicit scenes of sex or violence, and the use of strong language.

III

The Commercial Functions of Scheduling

The examples above illustrate how the schedule reflects the broadcaster’s assumptions about viewing habits, daily routines, and audience appeal. The schedule has an important economic function for broadcasters: it aims to maximize the potential audience for a programme at any one time, and broadcasters shape their schedule around a wealth of statistical data relating to audience ratings and demographics. Schedulers also aim to take advantage of the relationship between scheduled programmes on the same channel. For example, to insert a less popular programme between two successful ones is a strategy called “hammocking”, while the bid to encourage an audience to stay on to view a less popular programme after a reliable “banker” is called “inheritance” (because the aim is for the second programme to “inherit” the audience from the first). This does not mean, however, that television scheduling routinely delivers audiences to advertisers. The number of programmes that fail, or are moved to a fringe slot after a poor ratings performance, suggests how attracting an audience for a programme is always an unpredictable process that cannot be guaranteed with any certainty.

Furthermore, the emergence of new technologies, such as the video cassette recorder (VCR) in the 1970s-1980s and since 2001 the facility of Sky Plus (a digital video recorder (DVR) via which the viewer can record and store programming on a hard-disk drive), has represented a further threat to the traditional approach to scheduling. Once audiences can record programmes, they can view them outside the framework of the schedule at a time when it is most convenient to them. This is clearly of some concern to advertisers, who are aware that audiences are likely to skip (or fast-forward) through commercial breaks. This raises the question as to whether new technologies will ultimately render the traditional significance of scheduling obsolete. At the same time, society looks to the television schedule to provide it with “shared” spaces of television culture, and thus a sense of national belonging, whether through important sporting events (e.g. the football World Cup), the reporting of national/international disasters, or Christmas television.

IV

More Competition, More Choice?

The schedule also helps to regulate the choice of programming available to the viewer at any one time, whether within a channel, or across channels. The television producer and academic John Ellis, in his book Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty (2000), observes how television genres “are the basic building blocks of television, and the schedule is the architecture which combines them”. National television systems vary in how this mix is constructed. The chief networks in the United States have historically had a relatively narrow generic mix, focused on talk, news, sitcom, and drama (and now reality TV), while public service television in the United Kingdom has tended to offer a wider range of genres at any one time, and direct competition between programmes of the same genre is less common. However, in an increasingly competitive, multi-channel environment, in which satellite, cable, and now digital channels have taken away some of the generalist channels’ audience share, this situation is gradually changing. Some critics believe that increased competition has lead to a greater homogeneity among channels where scheduling choices are concerned.

Ellis indicates how the scheduling practices of traditional broadcasters have changed in the multi-channel environment. In earlier periods, management selected “what they considered [to be] the best…ideas, with an eye to the generic mix and overall social purpose of the channel. The offers from programme-makers drove the whole system along.” However, in an environment where competition between channels is fiercer, Ellis describes how a “demand-led” system has developed. Now television executives specify the kinds of programming they need to fill certain slots in the schedule (in relation to budget, genre, target audience). From this perspective, Ellis argues that the perceived demands of the schedule “now drive the broadcast television system” more than ever before.

New ways of organizing the relationship between the schedule and the generic mix of programming are offered by themed channels available on satellite, cable, and digital television. These channels are often aimed at more niche markets and audiences. For example, Challenge TV schedules only quiz and game shows, UKTV Style features a diet of lifestyle television, UKTV Food appeals to audiences interested in cookery programmes, while BBC Parliament offers coverage from the House of Lords and various political discussions. In the UK, this marks a significant move away from the scheduling practices of generalist channels, as well as the original principles of public service. Historically, the idea of mixed programming was central to the BBC’s understanding of public service, and the intention was for the listener to be enriched by exposure to the full range of programming. Whether the emergence of the multi-channel environment has led to more or less programme choice is thus an ongoing matter of debate.