I’d noticed this in the past, sort of casually, but have now a lot more aware of it now that I have a DVR: networks screwing around with show start-stop times.
Inveterate time-shifters ? including owners of digital video recorders such as TiVo, as well as some VCR owners ? are getting ticked off by the minutes lost when broadcasters shift their schedules so some shows start and end just slightly off the hour or half-hour.
Users of Internet message boards lately have gone so far as to accuse ABC of conspiracy for extending episodes of hits Lost and Desperate Housewives by a minute or two.
Not only can such padding cause recorders to clip off the start or end of an episode, it also can create overlaps (“conflicts,” in TiVo parlance) with later shows on other channels so viewers can’t record them. And, in doing so, it keeps viewers from skipping through those lucrative commercials.
But the networks claim it’s just a matter of wanting to pad out successful show time slots with added commercials (which they can sell for more). And it also makes “normal” viewers less likely to change channels.
And if that inconveniences some folks with TiVos and other DVRs — well …
ABC is unapologetic. “It’s not my job to make it easy for people to leave our network,” says ABC scheduling chief Jeff Bader. “Our whole goal is to get people to stay with us from 8 to 11.”
And heaven forbid that they do it with, oh, let’s say, high quality TV, rather than scheduling tricks.
Randy, on the other hand, notes that his Comcast PVR (the Seattle-area one with the Microsoft Guide) automatically grabs shows a minute or two on either side, and has two tuners, so the “problem” is taken care of by it. Our iGuide-based Comcast PVR doesn’t grab extra time, but it’s good at spotting problems during the initial programming, and allows adjustment of programming time.
It’s irksome that the networks play that sort of game, though. Doesn’t make me feel like I “must see” anything they have to produce.