TV scheduling consists of 5 categories: breakfast, daytime, afternoon, prime time, and watershed. Breakfast shows news and children's programs. Daytime fills gaps with news and soaps for young adults. Afternoon has children's shows and soaps until early evening. Prime time offers sitcoms, family shows, and soaps. Past watershed, content can include nudity or strong language for adult audiences. Popular UK channels include BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel 4, and Channel 5, which target different audiences throughout the day using repeats, imports, and scheduling techniques like hammocking and inheritance.

1. TV Scheduling

2. What is ‘scheduling’?
 Scheduling predicts when a programme’s
viewers might be watching, going from one show
to another on the same channel on the same
night. Furthermore it must be analysed by
viewing the ratings in order to compare who is
watching what at what time and how.

3. What is TV Scheduling?
TV scheduling consists of 5 different categories known as: Breakfast, Daytime,
Afternoon, Prime Time & the Watershed.
Breakfast will usually come round early morning showing things like: the news
and children’s TV shows.
Lunch Television works by filling the gaps which again will show ‘lunch time
news’ also known as the latest news and gossip.
The Afternoon TV slot shows children’s programmes and sometimes soaps
directed towards young adults and teenagers. This runs up until early
evening.
Prime Time viewing has plenty of choice along with the likes of sitcoms, family
viewing, soaps.
Past the Watershed it’s more for adult humour with scenes of violence and
sexual reference which some viewers may find offensive. This is shown at
this time as it may show nudity or use strong language.

4. Who is the audience?
Breakfast time audiences:
 Elderly
 Working Adults
 Children
Lunch-time Television audiences:
 Unemployed
 Stay at home wife/husband
 Elderly
Afternoon audiences:
 Children/Teens coming home from school
 Parents
Prime Time audiences:
 Families
 Teenagers
Watershed:
 Adults
 Teenagers
 Young Adults

5. What are the most popular TV channels?
The most watched channels in the UK are:
These are available with all providers including: Sky, Virgin,
Freeview, BT, TalkTalk & NowTV.
•BBC ONE •BBC TWO •ITV
•CHANNEL 4 •CHANNEL 5

6. Target Audience
The target audiences for each television channel
consist of a range of audiences.
 BBC & ITV audiences are usually very specific to
their tastes in the daytime, this will be because these
terrestrial channels show news broadcasts or
important information of what is happening in the
world. However, on the build up to the evening or
after the Watershed an audience of the younger
generation may watch as for example on weekends
both show TV competitions such as: The X Factor
and Strictly Come Dancing.
 Channel 4 & Channel 5 audiences are smaller and
target younger audiences or possibly adults under
50. These show television programmes that are
reality along with the likes of Celebrity Big Brother
and Come Dine with Me.

7. Repeats and Imports
 TV shows mostly show repeats of TV shows and
films to gain popularity. Furthermore, this is
because it gets zero time on the screen.
Sometimes certain episodes get more repeats as
it may have been a high rated moment.
 Imports are used to appeal to a wider audience,
channels most interested and well known for
doing this are channels 4 and 5.

8. Definitions
Hammocking
 This puts a new or less popular show between 2 with
higher viewers so that the viewers don’t change the
programme
Inheritance
 This means the channel put up a new or less popular
show after a popular one as they’ll hope the viewers will
remain watching.
Audience Fragmentation
 This is the breaking up of audiences due to the numbers
watching. This increases other channels ratings.

9. Definitions
Watershed
- The Watershed is 9 pm and onwards where TV
programmes and adverts are allowed to show
content which is for more of a mature audience.
Pre-echo
- This putting a new or less popular show on
before a more popular one so viewers can be
caught and tune into this earlier.