Want us to watch your show? Start them on time!
Networks under attack from break-out shows should try a little thing called punctuality.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News, Top Stories
Late starting times are now getting out of hand….
We’ve put up with delays of five, six, seven minutes but now it’s getting beyond a joke.
Last night The Amazing Race on Seven started at 10:50pm after being advertised at 10:30pm. Why?
Titanic was due to start at 8:30pm according to all the ads, Seven’s online Guide and print guides, but it began at around 8:45pm. Australia’s Got Talent was also late because Home and Away ran overtime. Again.
And the daily culprit was Today Tonight, which is incapable of finishing on time despite Seven News miraculously starting on the dot of 6pm day in, day out. It does this in order to sync with regional broadcasters.
None of last night’s programmes after 7pm were live -all were pre-recorded, edited and delivered to the network. So why didn’t Seven update its online EPG?
Maybe everybody on Fango should start complaining about this topic.
However, Seven is hardly alone in this habit.
Last week I waited for a 7:30pm episode of Bondi Vet. It started at 7:42pm after The Biggest Loser. I took note not to bother with Bondi Vet again after that. Who lets a 30 minute show run for 42 and thinks this is acceptable?
Nine also runs shows overtime with repetition. The Block and Celebrity Apprentice were appalling in this last year.
ABC and SBS seem to be much closer to the mark than commercials as far as I can see.
Networks are doubly shooting themselves in the foot over this.
If your show is late, we’ll just record it and watch it in our own time. That means we won’t have to watch it Live, we won’t see your sponsor ads, and you won’t get the overnight ratings.
At least viewers with Foxtel’s EPG can see accurate times (including for FTA), which I presume must also be available elsewhere. Maybe readers can fill me in.
So while networks are struggling to compete with Nine’s breakout show The Voice maybe they should create a point of difference by actually starting theirs on time?
It’s revolutionary I realise, but that’s my 2c worth.
81 Responses
STB do not show the new time so if you have setup record weekly for eg then the program always starts and finishes at the times set in your STB EPG not the actual time it starts so if you’re in a rush and don’t add extra time you miss the ending. This is getting worse on channel 7 and 9.
This situation makes it more likely that a person will watch a show on the net instead. I tend to watch a lot more online now Because the TV stations are going overtime. As you said in the article David “If your show is late, we’ll just record it and watch it in our own time. That means we won’t have to watch it Live, we won’t see your sponsor ads, and you won’t get the overnight ratings.”
Why is it so hard for them to get this in their heads?
It seems you can not email Channel 7 at all, I found the on help.yahoo.com/l/au/yahoo7/tv/basics/tvcontactchan7.html they state “Please note: Channel 7 doesn’t accept complaints, feedback, or answers to any questions via email support.” Why not?
No network offers email dialogue with the audience for pretty obvious reasons.
The STB tells you what time it starts and finishes at correctly but I don’t mind Sports because they run over time sometimes
This is just so true and so frustrating!
I can understand, and forgive, live shows/broadcasts running OT, but there is simply no reason for pre-recorded shows to ever do this.
It is a blatant grab at false ratings, and it shows the utter contempt that TV stations hold their viewers in.
I watch commercials on FTA at 16x speed.
The only program i watch “live” on FTA is the news.
I have bitched and bitched so many times on this lovely site so many times about Channel “blinking” 7 and how it runs late with Desperate Housewives every freaking week – nearly 40 mins late this week. Once this series finishes I swear I am never, ever watching anything on that station ever again. Not even if they some how get the rights to a show that locates, resurrects and re-unites every character from “Spooks” to do a spin off. Never. Ahhhhh!
One thing we could do is bombard the networks their social networks.
For example, if you “like” Channel 9 on Facebook and you see that they post something like “The Block begins tonight at 7 O’Block” it would be great if everyone responds with something like “don’t you mean 10 past 7 O’Clock? Why don’t you ever start your shows on time”.
Although I don’t think 7 have a Facebook page, they do have pages for their shows, such as Home and Away etc.
This would make it a lot more public.
So have we had a response from the networks? Or are they too gutless to respond? No doubt they’ll prob just make a whole lot of excuses and not actually accept responsibility. That’s what i’ve found when i made complaints to Seven and Ten. They just ignored the issue and made meaningless excuses.
I’m thinking about making a complaint to the Communications Minister, cos ACMA would do bugger all.
@Rayne,If watching on a regional such as WIN you may have found that was actually a scheduled advent,living on the Sunshine Coast I used the WIN 30 minute difference with Nine to swap between channels (we get both) I used this to watch an act on AGT without missing The Voice.
That half hour over run on Nine on Tuesday was just ridiculous. The Voice is pre-recorded. I expect a 5-10 minute over-run with the main channels these days but there is no excuse for almost 30 minutes! If your overblown reality show is going to run for 2 hours instead of 90 minutes then it should be scheduled as such in the original guide and in the promos!
Seven, Nine and Ten are the main offenders and it seems to be when the reality shows are on. The digitals seem to manage to stick to within 5 minutes of advertised start/finish times.
My dad wanted to tape new big bang theory, I told him to allow half an hour or more past when it is supposed to finish because I knew the voice would run over time. It was not even a wonder or a question, it was a foregone conclusion, and he told me I was right. I don’t watch anything live, I set a massive over run on all my recordings and every so often I check the updated EPG to make sure it hasn’t moved even beyond the generous time I have allowed.
@tomothyd “The reason why shows also run on time in the US is because they have to for the local affiliate stations who all air their local late night news services.”.
But if the network’s late the news is late, then “The Late Show” or whatever is late, so don’t quite follow this explanation. They run on time because they have to.
Regional stations here quite often run their own programming after 11:30pm, such as WIN.
David, your 2c worth is now worth about $10.50, talk about getting some interest!
I add my voice to the rest. Here’s a list of tv programs my wife and I regularly watch:
7 News, ABC News, Media Watch, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, How I Met Your Mother, Modern Family, New Girl, Raising Hope, Once Upon a Time, Packed to the Rafters, Revenge, Survivor, The Good Wife, Titanic. And a whole bunch of other dramas and comedies, too many more to list here.
We are in what the marketers call, I think, the A/B demographic: double income, no kids, prime candidates for advertising.
Here’s a list of the shows we watch live:
7 news, ABC News, Media Watch.
That’s it.
You know, 7, 9 and Ten could disappear tomorrow and I wouldn’t miss them one iota!
I’ll admit I’ve been blasting Seven for being late for Titanic and other shows . But the one thing I think they did right with it was put it on the same day for two weeks. I just wish they’d stop encouraging me and others to want to avoid watching new shows by being constantly late. Maybe others here record things but surely they shouldn’t want that. And I know it’s not just Seven that’s does this. Because it’s all the main commercial channels. Although I’d love a surprise if they decided to be within 3 minutes of 8.30pm next week with Titanic. I know it’s unlikely.
This has begged the question for some time now. How can a Network claim to ‘win’ a time slot if there are 2 programs in it? i.e the intended broadcast and the previous one that runs late??
I have to admit that I would be completely lost without my Foxtel IQ recorder.
Excellent David! It’s a serious problem and I heartily endorse your readers’ comments below.
BTW, good to see you back doing what you do best, i.e. trying to keep the bastards honest.
Speaking of bastards, it’s also interesting to see that the usual TV network trolls haven’t commented on this story. I was expecting to see at least a few: “Ch9 is better than Ch7 at starting on time” etc etc. 🙂
People talking about EPG’s…they are irrelevant. Even once the EPG has been updated the networks still advertise the original time. Seven does it all the time. Their EPG may have been updated a few days ahead to say Revenge at 8.41, but all day on the date it airs they still screen ads saying 8.30. This is clearly lying and false advertising. They know the updated time, why still advertise the original time it was meant to start? It’s bad enough they get away with not running shows on time, but this pisses me off just as much.
Isn’t this post 4 years too late?
Just as an aside, there are ways other than the Foxtel EPG to get shows to record with a fairly accurate EPG…
My current favourite is to use one of the newer TMS Topfields, running the AutoSched and TMSTimer TAPs. These will (respectively) search for and schedule shows by name, no matter what time or day they change to *and* they will adjust these schedules if they later move in the EPG. All you have to do is set your Topfield to scan one channel from each MUX for a few minutes each day (watch mode, rather than record).
Of course this doesn’t help with Ten, who don’t issue EPG accuracy updates from Sat-Mon and on holidays.
One other nice feature is the new Topfields can record two programmes from the one MUX, so you can record up to four channels at one time.
I had decided to sacrifice The Amazing Race last night because of conflicts with other programs I wanted to watch and record. I had a peek at 7 on a whim and realized that I could now record TAR because as I should probably have known it did not start at the scheduled time. This late start situation is out of control. I feel I am being treated like a fool by the networks. I want to watch your shows. Tell the truth about start times and I will watch instead of having to find other ways to watch a favourite show. It’s not really that hard is it?
Channel 7 has always been the worst at keeping a schedule, 9 and 10 are catching up. If you want to set PVR to record something at 9:30-10:00pm it needs to be set to record 9:30-11:00 just to make sure you actually record the entire program.
Digital subchannels are more reliable than the main commercial channel, so someone in the programming room can actually read a clock.
ABC and SBS set a schedule 7 days out, and 7 days later follow that schedule, why can’t the others ????
I no longer watch any commercial networks live since I got my PVR, its much more efficient to watch 3min of a program and skip over the 4min of ads.
I agree 100% with every word. Sick to death of the late running of every single program. I don’t think I’ve watched anything except News24 live for the last year and a half.
My PVR has a 30 second skip button so I don’t see a single ad – just have to press the skip about 8 times and the show’s back on. Works a treat And I don’t get shouted at by terrible ads.
The reason why shows also run on time in the US is because they have to for the local affiliate stations who all air their local late night news services. As we don’t have local news after 6pm, or so many regional affilliates like in the US, there are no concerns for the networks to run on time.
And like others, I noticed that Hot Seat often starts at 5.24-5.26pm with the news starting to 5.58pm.
I noticed even GEM are running Ellen 4 mins late now so Freinds begins late.
Talking of GEM, I have been watching Freinds more these days, and during the commercials, you would think that GEM only has 3 other shows on the channel, as they continuously only advertise three of their own shows.
Would love to see a response from the network programmers over this… I need a good laugh.
This is one of many reasons I dont watch FTA live anymore, except for Q&A. I plan my night so everything is on delay, so I can skip all the ads. This also means I can skip thru filler in shows like The Voice. Luckily, with series link on my Foxtel IQ, I dont miss anything as it is updated daily with correct times. Good article David!
Absolutely agree with your article David.
But, my EPG on my tv and 2 Topfields had TAR starting at 10.51pm last night so I did change my timer from 10.30pm.
Have no idea how close to 10.51pm it did actually start though!
There should be a law against it – literally.This situation really isn’t good enough and demonstrates how the commercial broadcasters, particularly Seven/Prime and Nine/WIN, are treating viewers with contempt. Hats off to the ABC and SBS (and sometimes Ten/Southern Cross Ten) whose programs more often than not start right on time or within a few minutes of their scheduled broadcast time. Seven/Prime have consistently aired the latest series of The Amazing Race excessively late since the show began. One night it started 22 minutes late. It’s shameful.