Wacky Wednesday #9: 8/7C

Did you ever wonder just WHY television programs are broadcast an hour later on the East & West coast?  (In case you didn't know, Mountain time *generally* follows Central time for TV programming).

Somewhere in my childhood I came up with the idea that everything was broadcast an hour later because people were living in places like New York City or Los Angeles and their lifestyles made it so they stayed up later.  So, basically I envisioned the entire population on both coasts as young, single, working professionals who ate dinner at fancy places and didn't come home until late at night - and then they wanted to watch their TV shows.  These people must have then stayed up until all hours of the night and gone into work at 9am or something.  And basically, I haven't given it another thought since. 

Well, we are now in a coastal time zone and amazingly we don't fit into the mold I designed as a child. 
In December I was thinking it would be fun for Elijah to get to watch some of the Christmas specials.  They all started at EIGHT!  8 o'clock is extremely late for us to be starting a TV program for our 4 year old (he is morning kid - it is not uncommon to see his smiling face before 6am).  

So, WHAT IS THE DEAL????

First off - it isn't a simple equation.  8/7C means a different thing depending on what channel you are watching.  Really.  Here is the breakdown I found:

 

On Major U.S. Networks, 8/7 Central Means:

• 8 Eastern
• 7 Central
• 7 Mountain
• 8 Pacific
• 7 Alaska

Scenario 1 (E!, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network):

• 8 Eastern
• 7 Central
• 9 Mountain
• 8 Pacific

Scenario 2 (Nickelodeon, AMC, Lifetime):

• 8 Eastern
• 7 Central
• 6 Mountain (Except Arizona)
• 8 Pacific

Scenario 3 (A&E, MTV, VH1, USA Network):

• 8 Eastern
• 7 Central
• 6 Mountain
• 5 Pacific

 How in the world would anyone ever know what time a show is going to be on based on the commercial?  I totally don't get it.  This must be why there are the wonderful on screen TV Guide things.

<Inserting a side note here:  We watch very little TV.  Living in Oregon is actually the first time that I have had cable TV, so it is my first time with the on screen TV Guide (except maybe in my college dorm room?!?).  Sometimes Elijah will say his favorite thing about Oregon is the TV: "Diego is on here!!!!!"  If only he knew that we could get Diego in Colorado, we just chose not to.  I'm so not telling him that..> 

This still doesn't answer the question of WHY?  This is the best answer I could find (from stupidquestion.net)

Most network programs are fed from the Eastern zone (New York or Washington). In the early days of prime time, shows were live and would be literally repeated for reception in each time zone. Once transmission by wire came in, however, it was cheaper for Central zone stations to pick up shows live from Eastern, thus getting it only an hour earlier (due to the time zone shift).

But the Pacific zone's three-hour time difference was big enough that they had to tape everything and run it later, which they did according to the normal Eastern schedule.

With a two-hour difference, Mountain also had to tape shows, and chose to show them at the same one-hour delay that Central used.

So, there you go.  You now know.

It turns out that there is ONE show Marty and I have been following over the last year: Parenthood.  It was on Tuesday nights 9-10p (Central/Mountain time).  It is now 10-11p.... which means it is now on hulu.com.  There is no way I am staying up until 11p to watch a TV show. 

Happy Wacky Wednesday!