TV Scheduling

Schedule- The pattern in which media programmes are arranged and presented to an audience.



The TV schedule for each day can be broken down into clear segments:

• 6-9 am: Breakfast TV
• 9-3 pm: Daytime TV
• 3-6 pm: Kids TV
• 6-9 pm: Peak Time
• 9pm onwards: Post Watershed

The audience for these segments are also split up for example:

The Breakfast shows are typically for early risers, children going to school, adults going to work and housewives.

The Daytime slot audience are generally retired, unemployed, students, and again housewives.

Children's TV has a clear and specific audience. It is placed in the 3-6 pm time slot as this is when all children are arriving home from school.

Peak Time contains programmes that are suitable for all.

Programmes that are Post Watershed are aimed at adults and contain a more explicit content.


The target audience for terrestrial channels such as BBC or ITV are:

1. BBC 1- Everyone as it is a Public Service Broadcaster.
2. BBC 2- Has a minority audience.
3. ITV 1- Adults
4. Channel 4- Again minority audiences
5. Five- Everyone

Some channels have repeats  in their channels, BBC1 and ITV1 contain less than 2% of repeats while BBC2, Channel 4 and Five contain more than 50% repeats.

The Likes of Channel 4 and 5 include imported programmes in their scheduling. They do this for revenue as the can make money from buying already existing programmes and advertise during them. This is a cheaper alternative to making their own programmes.


A Watershed is the unwritten agreement between broadcasters that they will air explicit and uncensored programmes after the watershed which is at 9pm.
Hammocking is the strategic placement of a programme between two other programmes e.g. positioning a new series between two well established shows that appeal to the same target audience often gives the right viewers an opportunity to sample the new series.

Pre-echo- Programme placed on schedule to come before a popular programme.

Inheritance- Programme placed after a successful programme in the hopes of inheriting some of it's audience.

TV listings will say the programme starts at a certain time. For example, Eastenders will start at 7.30pm however the programme rarely starts at that time because there is an advert strategically placed at 7.30pm which advertises a programme to a captive audience.

TV has progressed a considerable amount. For example, In the 1970's there was only 4 channels therefore the audience was more likely to stay watching that channel all night. However, because now we have such a variety of channels it means there's no shared experience, this is audience fragmentation (lots of people watching lots of different stuff). TV had progressed over time. For example in the 1970's there was only 4 channels meaning that an audience was more likely to only watch one channel a day/night. Nowadays we has a wide variety of channels appealing to different audiences means there is no shared experience. This is know as audience fragmentation.