What is TV scheduling?
Broadcast programming or TV scheduling is the placement and
organisation of different Television shows and films to enhance the show’s
audience potential. Certain more popular or higher budget works are put in what
is called a ‘prime time slot’ of 7-9pm where the highest audience numbers are
recorded. There are 3 main concepts to
TV scheduling; inheritance, pre-echo and hammocking.
Inheritance is the idea that a new programme follows after a
popular programme and subsequently inherits some of its audience. An example of this may be Our Girl on at 9pm
on BBC One, which followed the extensively popular Great British Bake Off which
is on at 8. Viewers may have just finished watching GBBO and with the swiftly
following, engaging titles of Our Girl their attention is not diverted enough
to change channels. This also means the reasonably new series of Our Girl,
which is only on its second season, gains an audience which may usually be out
of their targeted bracket.
Pre-echo follows a similar system to inheritance, where the
programme is scheduled before a popular programme, so that any viewers tuning
in early may catch the end and tweak the audience’s interest either to catch up
or tune in next week. An example being new game show ‘Meet the Parents’ before ‘X
factor’ on prime time Saturday ITV. This is a good way for new shows to attract
audiences as the more popular shows have guaranteed audiences which boosts the
ratings.
The third concept is called Hammocking, where a show is
scheduled in between 2 popular shows so it gains both the advantages of
pre-echo and inheritance scheduling.
Target audiences also determine the type of scheduling, and
the times of day in which they are shown, this includes:
Early morning: people who work early, children
Day time: students, unemployed, house wives, shift workers
Prime time: everyone, families
Late night: unemployed, students, shift workers
The ‘Watershed’ is a system in place to put any programmes
with explicit language, scenes of an explicit nature and programmes where the
content is viewed unsuitable for children. This is another way to target the
audience as it suggests that the children have gone to bed and therefore the content
is aimed at adults/parents.
There is some very good writing in here Darcy you have used explicit examples to evidence your understanding, you could however push further and used more of the CCCEO spectrum in order to access the high grades. It seems that you ran out of steam or time towards the end as there is no conclusions drawn. Questions that you may consider answering, How does scheduling change from week days to weekends? How does scheduling change from Terrestial to Digital Channels? With the increase of audiences watching digital or 'catch up ' tv is scheduling still important and why? Keep pushing Darcy!
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