Scheduling

Scheduling can be broken down into clear segments, these are daytime, afternoon and evening. The evening segment can also be broken down further into before and after the watershed.

Target Audience
The target audience for daytime television are mainly housewives, pensioners, the unemployes and children under 3. We know this as programmes such as Jeremy Kyle, Peppa Pig and Loose Women are shown.
Before the watershed the main target audience is families, as mainly soaps are on and many families watch soaps together.
After the watershed the target audiences changes to older, such as 16+, as it shows programmes such as Inbetweeners, Mock The Week and the news. It also involves strong language, sexual references, drugs and alcohol after the watershed, which shows us that the audience must have changed.

• BBC1 - is paid for by TV license therefore it has to appeal to everyone (e.g. Cbeebies, News, Eastenders)
  
• BBC2 - older generations (e.g. Popes Visit, Flog It, Politics)
• ITV1 - appeals more to 16-60 year olds (Jeremy Kyle, Corination Street, Law and Order, News)
• Channel 4 - under 30's (e.g. Hollyoaks, The Simpsons, True Blood and Skins)
• FIVE - older generations (Outlaw, News, Neighbours)

Repeats
Some channels repeat they're prgrammes a lot whereas others hardly repeat, as audiences can now watch on the internet, using things such as 4OD and BBC iplayer. The percentage of scheduling that are repeats on the five terrestrial channels are;

• BBC1 - 20%
• BBC2 - 25%
• ITV1 - 15%
• Channel 4 - 25%
• FIVE - 45%

Imported programmes

Some programmes are imported from other countries, such as America. Channel 4 has the most imported programmes as it airs programmes such as 'Friends', 'The Big Bang Theory' and 'Everybody Loves Raymond'. This is because they are popular programmes and varying audience will enjoy these programmes and the channel will make more mone.

Watershed
The watershed is the 9pm cut off every night when programmes are allowed to contain swear words, scenes of a sexual nature and violence. This is seen as the time when children will go to bed so that they will not see the more mature content.




Scheduling theory

Tv companies want to reach the right audience for a particular programme.

• Inheritance - scheduling a programme after a popular programme to "inherit" some of its audience.
• Pre-Echo - scheduling a programme before a popular programme, hoping that viewers will tune in early and enjoy the previous programme.
• Hammocking - a programme is scheduled in between two popular programmes.
• Remote controla have an impact on this as they can turn over at any time.
• Satellite/cable/freeview - now have a massive active part in choosing their tv schedule due to the hundreds of channels they can choose from.
• Watershed - stronger use of language, sex, violence and drugs after 9pm.
• Narrowcasting - eg disney channel, Nickelodeon, Discovery Channel, Teacher's TV.