Comments | zahri_melitor: *pokes American TV with curiosity*

zahri_melitor

pokes American TV with curiosity

Apr 12, 2007 20:57

I have questions. Your television does not make my kind of sense, but then I live in the nice world of 5 channels, plus digital miscellanary.

Firstly, how many channels do you actually have? Free to air ones?

Could anyone give me a link to a readable TV guide for a day that I could look at?

Does your evening TV really start and run on the hour? ( Read more... )

Comments 9

aggiebell90 April 12 2007, 11:49:30 UTC

I don't have a clue about how many channels there are. It depends on where you live, really.

Around here, if you don't have cable or satellite, you can get CBS and ABC (two of the original major networks), Fox (a newer major network), and PBS (Public TV -- they run on donations, basically) and occasionally, if the cloud cover is "just so," NBC (the third of the major networks -- the station is actually about 90 miles from here, so that's why it's flaky). But we're in a relatively smallish city. Bigger cities like Dallas have more, I think. You can add cable or satellite and then there are a bazillion channels.

Try here for a basic TV guide. This one's set for the Eastern time zone, but if you put in a zip code, you can get a more specific schedule. Try 79109 for an example (that's Amarillo, TX, FYI ( ... )

zahri_melitor April 12 2007, 12:16:58 UTC

Ta muchly.

I tend to look on cable TV with suspicion, but then, despite massive advertising campaigns, the TV execs haven't yet managed to get pay-TV penetration to more than 25% yet in Australia.

On the starting times - with ABC, anything is possible. Time Team, for instance, starts at 6.09pm on a Tuesday. And it generally does start at 6.09, unless it starts at 6.07. The ABC has no ads, see, and run a lot of children's programs during the day - they manage to keep on the five minute interval in the evenings, and it's usually almost still in basic half hour, 40 minute or hour blocks.

7, 9, 10 and SBS all have ads (boo hiss to SBS - they need to get rid of them again). Half hour programs pretty much all are listed to start on the hour or half hour. Hour long programs, during the day, start on the hour. In the evenings, hour long programs start on the half hour. Basically, from 7.30pm onwards.

Our main news runs before Prime Time, at 5pm for 10, 6pm for 7 & 9, 6.30 for SBS and 7pm for ABC. An additional late news runs at 10.30 on ( ... )

aggiebell90 April 12 2007, 15:38:57 UTC

We usually have news (here at least) at 5,6, and 10 (except for on weekends, when they usually cut the 5:00 news). Your ABC sounds like our PBS -- there's no ads shown there, either, unless it's a quicky preview of some show coming up soon. But you have to deal with the horrible fund drive once a year on PBS.

Our decent shows end at 10:00/11:00 depending on where you are in the country. And part of why we have news on so late is because lots of people have really insane hour (or two hour) commutes and miss the earlier news shows.

A show starting at 6:09 (or 6:07) makes me boggle. :)

zahri_melitor April 14 2007, 12:03:37 UTC

Well, ABC and SBS (Australian Broadcasting Commission and Special Broadcasting Service) are government funded. So, yeah, no ads, (though SBS now has them to provide extra funding) but they come out of the federal government budget. But they're not accountable to the government, mostly, and are where you actually get the least biased information and coverage of issues. (I mean, they have The Chasers War on Everything on ABC. Which you may actually have heard of, because they got Hillary Clinton this week, and she responded ( ... )

pixie_caramel21 April 12 2007, 13:11:16 UTC

Hummm, we get One, Two, Three, C4 (music and mtv ripoff stuff), Prime, CTV (local tv which airs German tv: Deutsche Velle? I know no German, but love the channel; in the daytime) annnnnd... yeah, that's it. Oh, Maori TV! Dear me, how could I forget it? I watch the occasional Maori lesson on it.

Nothing runs exactly to the hour... ever. You tend to learn which ones are fast and which are slow though.

*runs off to reply to your guesses*

zahri_melitor April 12 2007, 13:24:19 UTC

It's not fair. You have a musicy channel. All I have is Rage. And Rage is mostly preoccupied with filling in every spare hour on the weekend overnight with music, so the ABC don't actually have to schedule real programs and can keep the JJJ crowd happy by letting any band who sticks their hand up program for it.

Nothing runs to time here, either. Except the ABC. But, seriously, even they've had to incorporate a slight delay just so they don't lose people changing channels.

Yeah, but my point is, they schedule evening shows on the HOUR! Weirdos. What sort of starting time is "Heroes will be on at 8pm, followed by Prison Break at 9pm"? It's just... odd. And feels very wrong. Like snow at Christmas.

pixie_caramel21 April 12 2007, 13:35:02 UTC

Ahhh, I get what you mean. No, our prime-time is 7.30-8.30 etc etc. Since you have the news (6-7) and then a magaziney/newsy show (7-7.30) before you get into the prime time stuff. Well, that's one and three, anyway. Two has USA's funniest home videos (spew) on during the first half of the news, and Friends on during the second half. It's great, I see the good bit of the news, then flick over once it hits the sport! Then instead of watching Close Up or Campbell Live at 7.00, I flick over to C4 for Futurama. Love it.

C4 isn't all it's cracked up to be. They cut (I think, anyway) all the good shows because thick NZers wanted more PIMPEZ MAI RIIIIDE, BEEATCHES! and so on. Oh, and Punked. Ew. Kutcher. Ew.

I HAVE TO GO TO BED!

anka1082 April 12 2007, 14:43:22 UTC

Adding to Julie's comments, I'm from the Eastern time zone ( ... )

wench2002 April 14 2007, 13:30:58 UTC

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hope you have a fabulous day. xxx