As someone who publishes TV schedules on a web site, I long ago adopted the practice of using one standard time zone (in my case US EST/EDT) and using Midnight at the divider between days. Using any time except Midnight just confuses people. Even those prone to vernacular use that calls 2 AM Tuesday as "Monday night" do understand it's Tuesday. So using Midnight makes sense.
Further, one standard time zone allows anyone who visits my site to convert the times to their locale as almost all TV viewers (who have lived any significant length of time anywhere) in North America know how many hours their time zone differs from New York City, Washington, and Toronto, or can easily determine it. While using UTC would make for clarity internationally, at least if they used one consistent time system you could figure out what time it is in your locale. As it is, even the CBC doesn't seem to know internally and can't get it right in the information they release. (Side note: many TV stations got into the habit of using 5 or 6 AM as the start of a new day back when most of them signed off for a few hours during every overnight period and thus started a "broadcast day" in the early AM hours. The practice, in a 24 hour world, is anachronistic now. And don't get me started about the inappropriate use of AM and PM with 12:00:00.) -- -Rob de Santos -----Original Message----- From: Richard Cuff [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 8:01 AM To: Shortwave programming discussion Subject: Re: [Swprograms] CBC Overnight changes This is an issue for a broadcaster targeting a local audience that also finds itself with a global audience. After all, some folks consider 2 AM Tuesday morning (local time, wherever they are) to be "Monday night" in the vernacular. Those who wrestle with US public radio schedules always have to be on the lookout for this. In many instances, days start at 5 AM local time with "Morning Edition". Yet another reason I am always impressed by Kevin Kelly's endeavors with the Public Radio Fan database. Even international broadcasters aren't immune -- Radio Netherlands and HCJB used to show local days (not UTC days) in their schedules even though the schedules themselves showed UTC. It is particularly vexing when a broadcaster isn't consisent with this concept, as appears to be the case with the CBC. Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA On 9/12/07, Glenn Hauser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > ** CANADA. Anomalies keep showing up in the CBC radio schedule. From > the Hotsheet for Wednesday Sept 12, the final entry concerns the start > of the new local day, Thursday: > <snippage> > NOTE: the above days of week are the night before! Not the new day, > even tho displayed grids start at midnight, rather than end at some > inappropriate hour past midnight. Other versions of the online > schedules attach midnight listings to the previous day. Make up your > mind! Note that many of these shows are obviously from BBCWS, tho not identified as such here. _______________________________________________ Swprograms mailing list [email protected] http://montreal.kotalampi.com/mailman/listinfo/swprograms To unsubscribe: Send an E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], or visit the URL shown above.
