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CBS to send viewer alerts for late programming

Now here's an idea we could really use in Australia....

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Now here’s an idea we could really use in Australia….

CBS has announced it will use text messages and will send notifications through Facebook and Twitter to alert viewers when its shows are delayed by football games that are running overtime.

“We will do everything possible to let the audience know when our shows will be on later,” Nina Tassler, President of CBS Entertainment has said.

US media reports CBS is seeking to retain regular viewers when NFL games run longer than scheduled, sometimes by as much as 17 minutes (sigh, if only they knew!).

With networks new social media apps Fango, Jump-In and Zeebox, maybe our networks could borrow an idea from the US and help keep us informed?

After all we are always following their trends anyway, right?

Source: Bloomberg

  • Tagged with NFL

16 Responses

  1. US stations always start programs on time, unless overrun due to sport or unusual events.
    Australian stations never start programs on time.
    7pm is 7:03, 7:30 is 7:36, and so it goes, and all of these programs are prerecorded.

  2. Kenny, there’s a few reasons why the large quantitiy of affiliates helps keep US networks to time such as managing the availablity of advertising spots, return to local programming scheduling, the entrenched status of the 11pm news, etc.

  3. @davis – “US networks have a bajillion affiliates so they actually endeavour to keep to time”. Has nothing to do with start times. The “bajillion”(?) affiliates all carry the same network programming so start/end times are all the same, be it New York or New Haven – at least in the same time zones because sport is actually broadcast “live”, not on hours delay like here. If a live sports program runs over they will often “join XX now in progress” or play a filler/substitute program.
    Remember when IMT/Don Lane etc. always started at 9:30 because regionals and TCN9, needed a cross-time and every station was playing different programs prior to 9:30?

  4. Gee, sometimes as much as 17 minutes late? Because of live sport? We’re lucky that almost never happens here (because the networks intentionally stuff extra ads into the early evening programs).

    It’d be simpler if 7, 9, and 10 were to SMS whenever a program is going to start at the time that they advertised it at. Will prob cost them about 25¢ a week.

  5. We all know that this won’t be 100% successful. There will be times when they forget to or there will be times when they notify viewers that it is at this later time and then it might be pushed back even further. But this is definitely a major step in the right direction and should be adopted here in Australia.

  6. Yes, its an idea we could really use in Australia, but… the telco’s here have a cartel with SMS delivery. In the US the SMS protocol is open and free to send, as easy as sending an email.. eg. send an email to 0499999999@ vtext.com, gets delivered as an SMS to the Verizon mobile number 0499999999. Australian telco’s are addicted to the $$ from SMS, 5c, 10c or more.

  9. What Bazza said. It’s a bit different with live sports or live programs which can’t be controlled. But here it is a deliberate practice by the networks. Home and Away, Masterchef, they’re pre-recorded, pre-edited. They should be edited to fit the timeslot they are given. This is why i don’t watch free to air tv anymore. Get them to send me an alert when they decide to actually start a show on time.

  10. There shouldn’t be any late programs. If it is a live event preceding, they should put forward the end time. I’m fed up with programs not being showed at their advertised time. So I now use other sources rather than free-to-air TV for many shows. So much for some networks not adhering to advertised times as being an incentive to keep viewers.

  11. Exactly Bazza. What happens in Aus has very little to do with “live” events and more to do with (at best) incompetence on the part of the networks or (at worst) a cynical design to inconvenience viewers.

  12. What about when reality and contest shows AGT run over time?

    And why is it after months of the F1 starting at 9:45 that TEN is still advertising the F1 at 9:30? TEN just say 9:45 and be done with it! I miss the hour of F1 news before the race they used to show on ONE.

  13. If this was introduced here in Australia for just the 3 commercial FTA, the SMS network would crash with the amount of SMS messages that would be sent every night when program run late !!!

  14. US networks have a bajillion affiliates so they actually endeavour to keep to time.

    In Australia, no show ever starts late. Each begins exactly when the network means it to.

  15. The big difference is that our networks runs shows late quite deliberately, in the mistaken belief that it will retain viewers (“they won’t change channel if they’ve already missed 10 minutes”). They’re unlikely to want to compensate for this.

    It’s actually quite rare that a *truly* live event causes programming overruns here, almost every instance is a pre-recorded show and they are stored on second-accurate media these days..

    In fact what it all actually does is alienate viewers and/or drive them to alternate sources, but that’s another argument…

  16. They have actually been doing that on Twitter for years. Remember when I first saw it I suggested to Nine they should do the same about Underbelly (at the time) starting at 8.43 instead of 8.30pm – and these were the days before they bothered to update their EPG. Nine never replied, of course!

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