Primetime schedules around the world

Just thought it would be interesting to compare primetime schedules around the world with those in the UK:

I'm beginning with the US, where stations have a pretty structured 8-11 zone.

Personally, I quite like the familiarity the US schedules have - they are usually released months in advance and remain pretty stable, except when shows are pulled mid-run. I also think they ar far more varied than UK schedules during the week, although USTV seems to have the weekend off.

abc
CBS
NBC
FOX
UPN
TheWB

And a PBS station:
PBS Local Station (Some BBC programmes on this!)

Just thought it make an interesting discussion to compare our UK primetime schedules with those around the world, so I would like other members to add other schedules, especially from Australia and Europe (please translate though!) - and I'd be interested to see what the Japanese have to offer - is it all Endurance?

Also, if anyone can upload a better guide to the US schedules it be appreciated.

Around Europe (too much to translate!):

http://tvtv.de - Germany
http://tvtv.es - Spain
http://tvtv.fr - France
http://tvtv.ch - Switzerland
http://tvtv.it - Italy
http://tvtv.at - Austria
http://tvtv.co.uk - UK (go to 'More Channels')
http://tvtv.gr - Greece (offline currently)
http://gids.omroep.nl/ - Netherlands

Australia & NZ:

http://tvguide.ninemsn.com.au/ - FTA Australian TV Guide
http://tvnz.co.nz/view-preempt/tvnz_epg_skin - NZ TV Schedules

Failing that, just search Google!

From Canada... (btw... a lot of these, you'll have to navigate to the day and time that you want to look at)

CTV (CFRN Edmonton)

CBC (National - English)

Global (BCTV Vancouver)

A-Channel (Calgary)

CityTV (Toronto)

The New RO (Ottawa)

Radio-Canada (National - French)

Schedules from the English stations in Hong Kong:

TVB Pearl (for 27 Sept)
ATV World

A few notes:
- There are 2 major TV operators in Hong Kong: TVB (Television Broadcasts Ltd) and ATV (Asia Television). Each operates 2 channels: one in Cantonese, and the other primarily in English.

- However, the English channels air quite a lot of programming in other languages too, namely Mandarin (aka Putonghua). As I recall, they also air some Japanese (or Korean?) programmes on weekend mornings.

- Notes on the programmes listed:

ETV = educational programming. Since the government broadcasting outlet (RTHK) doesn't have its own TV channel, the commercial stations are required to pick up the slack and air RTHK's educational programmes during the school year. So TVB and ATV just shove those programmes to their respective English channels during daytime.

When school's out during the summer, the English stations simply sign-off and show a test card, rather than bothering with filling the schedule.

TVB Pearl's "World Live": a filler programme that shows live camera shots from around the world. I think they licensed it from some foreign company.

I thought about linking to/ listing the schedules of the Cantonese stations, but there were too many translations for me to bother with.

A one-page guide to the current US primetime schedules: http://www.epguides.com/grid/

And the fall season: http://www.epguides.com/grid/fall.shtml

The US prime-time schedules actually do include weekends; at least for the "big four" networks.

The Futon Critic has a fall primetime television grid where they show "who's on where and when."

Saturdays on CBS have been dramas in the past, this year CBS is counting on repeats of their more popular series on that evening with a weekly repeat of the current week's episode of "Survivor" at 8, "Crime Time" is at 9, with a rerun of either "Without A Trace," or one of the "CSI" franchise shows. CBS News' "48 Hours Mystery" is a crime-based news documentary that runs at 10.

Sundays on CBS is anchored by the long-time ratings champ "60 Minutes." at 7 (prime-time starts earlier on Sundays, but that time may vary on CBS & Fox, depending on how long NFL coverage lasts), it's followed at 8 by the crime-drama "Cold Case," and a two-hour movie block is at 9.

ABC has turned Saturday night into a three-hour family-oriented movie franchise with, more often than not, a movie under the "Magical World of Disney" banner. Sunday's on ABC has "America's Funniest Videos" at 7, "Extreme Makeover: The Home Edition" at 8 (a home-renovation series), the primetime soap "Desparate Housewives" at 9 (premiering this weekend, and truly a placeholder for "Alias," which returns in January), and the new incarnation of David E. Kelley's "The Practice," now called "Boston Legal" with James Spader and William Shatner at 10.

NBC is also taking the repeat route that CBS has championed on Saturday nights, leading off with their weekly repeat of the Donald Trump reality show "The Apprentice" at 8, with two other dramatic series (usually from the "Law & Order" franchise) at 9 & 10.

On Sunday's, NBC also goes with three one-hour shows -- the newsmagazine "Dateline" at 7, historic drama "American Dreams" at 8, followed by crime dramas "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" at 9 and "Crossing Jordan" at 10.

Fox's Saturday night is almost a Saturday night institution with the same schedule dating back to the mid-to-late 80s: an hour of "COPS" at 8, and "America's Most Wanted with John Walsh" at 9. You can count on it like clockwork.

On Sunday's Fox's schedule gets jostled a lot by NFL coverage early in the evening, but their new Sunday night schedule kicks into gear after the World Series on November 7 with comedies "King of the Hill" at 7, "Malcolm in the Middle" at 7:30, "The Simpsons" at 8, "Arrested Development" at 8:30, and the newhour-long reality show "The Partner" (which no one seems to know much about as of yet) at 9.

UPN does not broadcast nationally on Saturdays and Sundays at present, but this may change with them adding a movie night early next year.

The WB does not run on Saturday nights, but has what they call "EasyView" late Sunday afternoons, leading into their prime-time schedule: double episodes of "What I Like About You" at 5, prime-time drama "The Mountain" at 6, variety show "Steve Harvey's Big Time" at 7, fantasy drama "Charmed" at 8, and drama "Jack & Bobby" at 9.

PAX TV may end up dying a quiet death before the end of this coming season, but they are programming a weekend schedule that includes a two-hour movie block Saturday night at 8, and religious debate show "Faith Under Fire" at 10; Sunday's include original programming: "America's Most Talented Kids" at 8, medical drama "Doc" with Billy Ray Cyrus at 9, and crime drama "Sue Thomas F.B.Eye" at 10.

NFL coverage on Sunday's starts much earlier: "NFL Countdown" runs two hours on ESPN starting at 11, with CBS' "The NFL Today" and Fox's "Fox NFL Sunday" running an hour from 12 to 1. Usually two afternoon games are played with regional coverage around the country being split between CBS and Fox (CBS usually carries AFC games, Fox is the home of the NFC) at 1 and 4 Eastern time. ESPN usually carries a single Sunday night game with coverage starting at 8:30 Eastern; their NFL highlights show, "NFL Primetime with Chris Berman" starts an hour earlier. ESPN's "NFL Countdown" also runs for an hour prior to ABC's "Monday Night Football" game.

If anyone would like any info on what the cable networks are doing, let me know.

How long are news programmes around the world?

In Britain most are half an hour. So is ABC World News Tonight, but apparently it is scheduled for an hour, and it has long commercial breaks - is this true ?

Yup, from what I know NBC Nightly News, World News Tonight and the CBS Evening News go out at 6.30pm, they do have at least 3 or 4 breaks, try watching the NBC News on CNBC in the UK and the break structure is annoying and very long, though on US TV there is more Local News than National News as most stations a couple of hours in the morning, about 30 minutes at lunchtime, about an hour at the early evening slot and then again at 11pm usually, though I remember WB11 in New York had its news at 10pm.

Talking about US Prime Time, I just watched Arrested Development on BBC Two then and I enjoyed it very much, it didn't realise it was on Fox in the States, it felt more HBO, though this programme must have alot of ad breaks in the US as it came on after 10pm and finished before 10.25pm!

In the States, the network evening newscasts on ABC, NBC and CBS last for 30 minutes. They do indeed air at 6.30pm in many East Coast cities (eg New York), but that's not necessarily the case around the country. In Seattle, they air at 6pm; in San Francisco, ABC WNT and NBC Nightly News air at 5.30pm, while CBS Evening News airs at 6pm.

ABC, NBC and CBS also have morning network newscasts. ABC's "Good Morning America" and CBS's "The Early Show" run from 7-9am. NBC's Today Show used to as well, but has since added a third hour; it now runs from 7-10am. (Here, however, the morning programs air at the same time regardless of time zones; although a few CBS stations replace portions of the Early Show's first hour with their own local news/)

You're right; there ARE a lot more local newscasts. For a big-3 station (ie ABC, CBS or NBC local station) in a major market, a typical local news lineup consists of:
about 2 hours in the morning, from 5-7am (preceding network morning news)
30 or 60 minutes at 11am or noon
60-90 minutes during the 5 and 6pm hours, forming an about 2-hour block in conjunction with the network evening newscast.
35 minutes at 11pm (10pm Central/Mountain)

Some even run local news at 4pm or 4.30pm.

Fox, WB and UPN stations that run newscasts usually have them at 10pm (9pm Central/Mountain), as is the case with the aforementioned WB11 in New York. Some of them also run 3-4 hour morning newscasts, competing against the network morning programs (again, WB11 is one such station).

Yeah they join that sometimes on Sky Travel here in the UK.

Australian Newtworks are all slightly different. Generally though Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth have an hour of either News or News and Current Affirs in the evening, while the regional markets have an extra half hour Local News bulletin, with the capital city news bulletins and current affairs programming following. Southern Cross Ten is an exception as they don't do any Local News apart from a state based half hour current affairs program on the weekend.

All News and current affairs is half an hour except for Ten's weekday 5pm bulletin which is an hour, and the Today and Sunrise programs on Nine and Seven which are both 3 hours. Current Affiars programming on a Sunday morning is also usually an hour (Sunday Sunrise, 7) or 2 hours in the case of Sunday on 9.

Many Fox affiliates (and some WB affiliates) run their own locally produced morning show, running three to four hours, depending on the market. Fox's flagship station, KTTV Los Angeles, produces an hour-long fluff-type news program (not unlike "Entertainment Tonight" or BBC's "Liquid News") that immediately follows their morning show called "Good Day Live" (and hosted by "Good Day LA" hosts Steve Edwards, Dorothy Lucie & Jillian Barberie). GDL is syndicated to many Fox affiliates nationally, and generally runs live.



Those Fox, WB & UPN stations that run evening newscasts generally run them an hour in length (There are exceptions to this rule however). There are handful of non-affiliated stations who run newscasts at other points (the most notable examples are KCAL-TV Los Angeles, KRON-TV San Francisco, WJAX-TV Jacksonville, KONG-TV Seattle & WCIU-TV Chicago) during the evening.