Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2018 September 15

= September 15 =

Abbreviation "Tuesday 8/7c"
In English TV I recently recognized abbreviations like "Tuesday 8/7c" or "New Episode Tonight 9/8c". What does that (numeric stuff at the end) mean?

From Germany, Markus Prokott (talk) 08:51, 15 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Surely you mean American TV? "c" is "central" and refers to the Central Time Zone. See the article Effects_of_time_zones_on_North_American_broadcasting. "8/7c" means that a programme starts at 8 o'clock in the Eastern Time Zone and (simultaneously) at 7 o'clock in the Central Time Zone. --Wrongfilter (talk) 11:43, 15 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, I meant, it was some English(-speaking) TV from whereever. But as you depicted it, it should've been from one or more English-speaking American countries. (Or does it also occur in Latin-speaking America? I will read the article at that.)


 * Thanks for the explanation. Markus Prokott (talk) 12:03, 15 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Note also, as per the article Wrongfilter linked, that an "8/7c" show also typically starts at 8:00 in the Pacific Time Zone, so it can be read as "8:00 unless you are on Central Time". (The Mountain Time Zone has a relatively small population and scheduling in that zone varies.)


 * Here in Canada, we sometimes see (or used to see) shows advertised as "8:00, 8:30 in Newfoundland". They would be broadcast simultaneously at 8:00 Atlantic and 8:30 Newfoundland Time, and then rebroadcast at one-hour intervals at 8:00 in the Eastern, Central, Mountain, and Pacific Times. --76.69.47.228 (talk) 01:46, 17 September 2018 (UTC)


 * "8:57.5 in St. Pierre and Miquelon". Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:56, 17 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I don't get this.  Standard time in St Pierre and Miquelon is three hours behind Greenwich.   When the clocks are showing nine a.m. a sundial shows a quarter past eight.   Anyways, the linked article does not say that "an 8/7c show" starting at 8:00 Pacific "can be read as '8:00 unless you are on Central Time'".   The statement may be true as far as it goes, but the further east you go the later the time by your clock. 2A00:23C1:CD83:1F01:D536:2A6C:D8F2:9746 (talk) 10:31, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * SMW forgot to link to Poe's Law, which explains that when you make a facetious statement on the internet, most people will think you are serious. -- Jayron 32 19:19, 18 September 2018 (UTC)
 * It depends, some things are like 5, 6, 7, 8 like live sports and I think the Oscars, some like sitcoms and reality TV are 8/7 Central and they probably say 8/9 Mountain or 8/9m cause those are delayed since having the typical schedule across the US simultaneously would be very inconvenient (a typical US Big 4 schedule is metro area news 6-6:30, world news 6:30-7, game shows/celebrity news/reruns/whatever's their primetime shoulder 7-8, newest episodes of most popular fiction and reality TV 8-10, primetime shoulder or Fox News (not that Fox News) 10-11, metro area news or whatever Fox plays after the news 11-11:30, late night comedy/celebrity interviews 11:30-12:30, late late comedy or news magazine program 12:30-1) Having that be Central would make the news end at the start of Los Angelenos' hour long commutes and few Easterners who have to work at 9 would want to stay up to see the end of those popular shows at around 1:30. (the networks prefer to lose Mountain viewers to lateness than Eastern, much less viewers) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:18, 18 September 2018 (UTC)


 * It means 8:00, 7:00 Central Time. Sometimes they will say it out loud, even. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:06, 18 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Wrongfilter and some others have given the OP good advice. For background, it may be helpful to know that in the early days of live television broadcasting in the US, there was no practical way of recording, delaying and then playing back a program broadcast live from New York, as most were.  For example, viewers in Chicago became accustomed to watching their national programs one hour earlier than those in New York, while those living on the west coast were often treated to a repeat live performance broadcast at 11PM in New York, but seen locally at 8PM in Los Angeles.  When kinescope and later videotape technology made time-delayed playback of network programs for the west coast possible, stations in the Central Time Zone did not need to use this expensive and time-consuming method of delayed broadcast because airing programs live and one hour earlier was already traditional. --Thomprod (talk) 14:39, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

If it is a problem that old, I wonder why I had never recognized it before. Must be difficult to live in so much timezones. ;-) Sometimes it's nice to live in an itsy-bitsy country.

All shows I saw were in English, and the announcements with the mentioned timecode all have been inserts during the show at the bottom of the picture (not e.g. teasers before the show; seeing things before/after the shows or during commercial breaks could've get me more hints about the origin of the broadcasts), and they all looked just like the ones I wrote down here. Based only on the language, I assume the shows could've been also from Canada or Australia. Could they? Or do they use different patterns (or none at all) for displaying multi-times?

Markus Prokott (talk) 11:01, 20 September 2018 (UTC)


 * If it is Australian or Canadian the accent will not sound like General American. If Australian is like British in this one vowel they might talk like shaaft and if it is Canadian they might talk like aboot or aboat (about) you knoo (know). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 11:51, 20 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I didn't mean the origin of the show itself, just meant the location of the broadcaster (the broadcasting station). So the same show (let's say US show, with US speech, US actors and so on) might be broadcast in Canada and Australia (because it's such a great show :-)), but of course they wouldn't dub it with new (Canadian or Australian) voices as they would e.g. in German TV because Canadians and Australians can understand US English well. Hence they would talk US English, but the announcements with these funny time notations would be specific for the broadcaster not the producer of the show, so they might use the Canadian or Australian version of the "8/7c" pattern (if there is one(?)) in the otherwise US show.


 * I don't think I have heard so much Canadian or Australian in TV so far. I don't think there are so much shows and movies from these with international attention. Or they might not use their own accents and rather use US accent or the disgusting British Received Pronounciation just to be more mainstream (unfortunately). (What accent do they use in Stargate Atlantis in the original English version? I only saw the German version, but I estimate it would be US accent.)


 * Markus Prokott (talk) 18:58, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
 * "General American" and "General Canadian" are essentially exactly the same - could you tell just by listening whether Peter Jennings was Canadian or American? No, probably not. That's an artificially "neutral" accent though, people don't generally talk like they are reading the news on national TV. I live close to the border, so I can watch the news from Detroit, or Cleveland, or Buffalo, and they all have accents that are very different from mine. But the language is the same, so we never dub shows from any other English-speaking countries.
 * It's interesting that you mention Stargate Atlantis because, not only was the show filmed in Canada and had a lot of Canadian actors, some of the characters were Canadian too, and sometimes there were jokes about their different accents. The "ZPM" power source was pronounced "zee-pee-em" by the American characters, and "zed-pee-em" by the Canadians. In one episode, Rodney and his sister, both Canadian characters (and played by Canadian actors) both say "sorry" the stereotypical Canadian way and Carter teases them about it, which is extra amusing because although Col. Carter, the character, is American, the actor is also Canadian. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:06, 26 September 2018 (UTC)