TV scheduling

TV Scheduling

The schedule for day to day television can be broken down into different categories. This being repeated each day, audiences know when the programme they want to watch would be on.

These categories include:

- Early morning
- Day time
- Prime time
- Night time


Each category aims to entertain the particular audience for each of these. This is done so that viewings can rise as they know they are appealing to a particular audience and can go further with programmes with the same target audience. The audiences for each of these categories are;
- Early morning - workers
- Day time - housewives
- Prime time - everyone
- Night time - students
These target audiences are aimed at as that would be the time that most of the programmes are watched by each group.
The idea of 'the watershed' is that after 9pm, more mature programmes can be shown including scenes including more violence, swearing and scenes of a sexual nature.


Furthermore, taking into account target audiences, each terrestrial channel aims its programmes at a certain group of people. With viewing numbers being able to be monitored, the channel knows what appeals to their audience and what does not. BBC1 for example is aimed at middle aged and middle class people, where as BBC2 is aimed at more educated people supported by the amount of documentaries. ICT1 however aims more to entertain everyone within the working class, usually within the prime time slot. Channel 4 aims to entertain mainly students, this is done by showing programmes more towards that age range in the night time slot. Channel 5 however has been problematic as it tried to appeal to everyone, therefore the viewing numbers becoming lower as programmes that don't appeal to the majority will affect this.


The percentage of repeats varies throughout each terrestrial channel. These percentages include:
- BBC1 = 10%
- BBC2 = 20%
- ITV1 = 30%
- Channel 4 = 30%
- Channel 5 = 40 %
These figures show that the BBC repeats less programmes than the other channels. This is because the TV licences that people pay cover the BBC, where as it is cheaper for the other channels to pay to premier shows from other countries, rather than make them themselves. This is because the studio space is so expensive.