The schedule defines the everyday specificity on television. The nature of television is defined by scheduling for example the pacing of particular programme types, the balance between particular forms of programming etc. In simple terms a schedule is a grid, dividing the broadcasting day into slots of thirty minutes duration. In the age of scarcity when television was broadcast live it was difficult to control the duration of the programme. However in the era of availability, individual programmes matter less than the integrity and the channel itself.
Another important factor in the article is ‘audience’. The performance of current or past schedules can be assessed and this will be a guide to their possible future uses. Each programme is assessed using demographic data derived from BARB. This provides details of performances of particular programmes. With the size of the sample and techniques now used for audience measurement, audiences can be specified according to class, age, gender etc. BARB figures may be flawed but it has a basic validity and it is acknowledged throughout the industry.
Scheduling is important because it deliver programmes to audiences when they are most likely to watch it, which helps the advertisers target, that audience. Echoes and pre-echoes are mentioned in the article, which is an important part of scheduling. They help to maintain the audience. Bankers are the crucial programmes that supposedly guarantee audiences.
In this piece the author seems to establish the important factors that broadcasters take into consideration when scheduling as for example audiences. Evidently it is important for broadcasters to attract the audience. However in doing it cold be argued that sometimes quantity has more importance than quality. Because of this fierce competition between channels there are too many programmes of the same and television becomes too predictable for the audience, which leads to them being less gratified. The article states ‘ scheduling attempts to ‘deal with’ all aspects of competition while not knowing what most will be’. This is true, as broadcasters do not deal with actual audiences. They base the decisions of scheduling on statistics which although valid they tend to be flawed as the article clearly states. On the other hand attending to audiences in a more personal level would be very difficult to do. Not only it would be time consuming but also cost broadcasters a great deal of money. Having said that it is important to note that broadcasters specify audiences according to age, class, gender, region, pattern, of viewing and ‘even by their degree of appreciation of the programme’. In categorising the audience in this way broadcasters are likely to succeed in getting the audience.
The author’s conclusion on real audiences and their behaviour is undetected by broadcasters is somewhat vague. It is more that likely that people that are the same age, gender and come from the same background will enjoy the same programmes and that has been proven by different programmes, for example soaps have traditionally been targeted to women and that is the audience they got. Recently soaps have tried to target a more mass audience by introducing characters in which different people can relate to. Not only that but also soaps sometimes overlap with genres for example Phil Mitchell in Eastenders is somewhat of a gangster figure and the gagster genre is arguably a male genre therefore that will attract the male audience.