This is probably quite a silly question, but it's been bothering me slightly ever since I visited. It was probably because I was not long enough in one city, plus the large number of channels on offer (something like 70 or 80 in the hotel in Chicago?), but I never did get the hang of a typical TV schedule, always ending up surfing semi-randonly at night.

First I'll tell you how Aussie TV scheduling works.

In Sydney and in fact across most of the country, we have four commercial stations, one government-paid-but-run-independant ([link|http://www.abc.net.au/tv/|ABC]), and one about halfway ([link|http://www.sbs.com.au/|SBS]). I can ignore one commercial station at this point ([link|http://www.tvs.org.au|TVS]) because they're very new, they don't have a lot of coverage and they don't publish their schedule where everyone else does.

Two of the other three commercial stations ([link|http://www.seven.com.au/|Seven] and [link|http://www.ninemsn.com.au|Nine]) have a gameshow or something light at 5pm, then another at 5:30, a half-hour news at 6pm, a current affairs program at 6:30, a soap or a gameshow at 7pm, an hour's episode of some series, such as a drama, at 7:30 (or two half-hours shows, 7:30 and 8) and either a movie at 8:30 or a more hour-long shows (8:30, 9:30, 10:30...), usually followed by a late news bulletin at a variable time. The third commercial station ([link|http://www.ten.com.au/|Ten]) starts a little differently, with an hour's news at 5, a soap at 6, a comedy at 6:30, usually a reality-TV show at 7, and then as above. This pattern has been in place for longer than I've been watching TV, so we're very used to working around the half-hours for things, and catching a movie at 8:30. Even Ten did this for a long time before putting their news at 5 because they couldn't compete at 6. Heck, the ABC and SBS work around that on-the-half-hour thing, too. Even though ABC's news is at 7pm, it has a current affairs program at 7:30, something half-an-hour at 8, and hour-long stuff usually at 8:30 and 9:30 or so (the ABC only runs ads for its own programs, so what might be an hour program with ads, will finish in 45 minutes on the ABC).

US TV doesn't seem to work that way. I just took a gander at some of the big US network website and their schedules. I noticed things are oriented around the o'clock. Hour-long shows start at 8, 9 and 10. There's always a news bulletin at 11pm. CBS also has news at 5pm, 6pm and 7pm (there's that much news?)! The Aussie late night news is never at a reliable time. It took me a long time to grasp why the phrase "<such and such normal/impossible thing occured>. Film at 11." was humourous.

I know this is probably one of those "why is he bothering" posts. But I'm curious. Like I said above, we're long accustomed to certain types of patterns in TV schedules in Australia. The 8:30pm movie is one of the most well-known ones. I'm curious as what the US ones are!

Wade.

Your hour-long blocks usually start on the hour, our's usually start on the half-hour. But I can see the Eastern/Central closeness could drive that.

I think our network system must be different to yours. Although we have 'networks', mostly this gives brand recognition and common programs to display. There doesn't seem to be a "network time band", as a lot of programs they show are the same as in the major cities most of the time, yet they fiddle all through the day, too.

I noticed the plethora of channels. I knew New York is unique in broadcast TV; I think my hotel was only feeding the free-to-air channels as there was only like 15 or so. The one in Washington looked like they picked about 70 from a much wider pool - this wasn't obvious until I got to Chicago where it looked like I just got the whole cable feed of 80-odd (maybe more), rubbish'n'all.

I did find some MythBusters one night. I thought they were just showing episode after episode. No: they showed two then repeated them. You'd never see that in Australia.

Actually , our networks are having quite a different problem with repeats. We're used to a full run of a series, so over 22 weeks (for example), there's 22 new episodes aired. This works when a whole series has finished production before we see it at all (the norm for many decades). But I've seen that US TV audiences get repeats interspersed through a first run because production can't quite keep up. We have to do the same if we want new US shows as soon as they're broadcast in the US. But Aussie audiences aren't used to this and boy do they complain... (Even Aussie dramas create themselves enough lead-time that a whole season can air without interruptions for production delays. A typical lead-time is 6 months.)

Wade.

Mind you, I'm already $64/mo for internet (ADSL).

One thing I sorta regret having missed out on was old 'endless channels' analogue system. I got a taste of that in Chicago. It feels so wonderfully disorganised and you can just keep going to the next one to the next one to the next one until you wrap around. And then keep going. Maybe you'll find something before you wrap around again in half-an-hour's time.

Modern digital systems don't always let you do that. They organise everything and you can find what channel you think you want by looking in a menu. :-( The Foxtel box (one of the cable systems in Australia) doesn't let you scroll endlesly. It gets lost as it transitions between some channel groups.

Wade.