It's easy on a music station but some nighttime talk shows are surely cut short by an hour in the Spring and an hour longer in the Fall.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
What happens when the time changes?
- Thread starter vchimpanzee
- Start date
Typically the syndicator makes the adjustment (since most talk stations run syndicated talk after midnight).
This mainly becomes a problem in states that don't adjust for DST.
How do syndicators accommodate their Arizona and Hawaii affiliates? Is filler programming provided or are the affiliates on their own to run music, PSAs or "please stand by" loops for an hour?
I'm asking what specifically is done. Is there an extra hour not aired in March that gets added in November?
There's a very lengthy discussion about this on the Phoenix board from last spring.
I assume it varies from show to show. But they don't save an hour for 6 months. That wouldn't work for news/talk.
CTListener said:
We used to have this problem in Indiana. Large stations in Indiana would tape delay their syndicated programming by an hour during winter, so the schedule would be the same all year. Those stations would start their recording equipment an hour before the switch, and re-rack that hour of programming and air it again to fill the missing hour.
Many smaller stations would stay with whatever the satellite provided, messing up their program schedule by an hour.
To vchimp's main question, for the most part during "fall back", syndicators will insert an extra best-of hour of programs. Since there isn't much live radio happening at 2am on Sunday morning, it's pretty easy to tell the computer to play an extra hour of archived programs. Whether that is airing the same show twice, both times that 2am occurs, or something unique will vary from show to show.
I was one of the people doing tape delay of network programming at a TV station in Indiana in the 90s. During DST months, we would start a one-inch reel just before 7pm, and roll a new one every 45 minutes, leaving enough overlap to match audio/video and color. That went on through news time, then we'd roll on Letterman (CBS affiliate) at 10:35pm for 11:35pm playback. Daytime was the same deal, though CBS switched us to the CDT feed of CBS This Morning. Where it got interesting was news bulletins, especially with more than one break-in in an hour. As far as syndication, the only difference was feed times went back and forth. If we recorded the Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy hour at 2pm during non-daylight time months, we recorded it at 1pm during DST.
Works for "Wait! Wait!" on NPR. When they take a week off. They may not do a whole hour of previously unaired material, but they sometimes do a lot.
I don't listen to radio much any more but the time change plays havoc with TV schedules here in AZ (one of only two states that do not recognize DST).
What happens here is some programs change times (Sunday morning news/talk shows for instance) while others remain in their normal local time slots (weekday evening network news programs).
The Navajo Indian reservation (which borders New Mexico) does observe DST so flips back and forth with the other half of their reservation in NM but the Hopi reservation (which is wholly contained within the Navajo) stays on AZ time.
We used to have two weeks during the year when published schedules would be all out of whack. Fortunately, most of them today have been corrected and even Microsoft allows for non-DST in Windows.
What happens here is some programs change times (Sunday morning news/talk shows for instance) while others remain in their normal local time slots (weekday evening network news programs).
The Navajo Indian reservation (which borders New Mexico) does observe DST so flips back and forth with the other half of their reservation in NM but the Hopi reservation (which is wholly contained within the Navajo) stays on AZ time.
We used to have two weeks during the year when published schedules would be all out of whack. Fortunately, most of them today have been corrected and even Microsoft allows for non-DST in Windows.
My guess is that Hawaii and Puerto Rico don't observe DST due to their tropical locations. I'm told that much of Saskatchewan doesn't observe it either. It must be really fun on time change weekends for Llyodminster, AB/SK! (They're like the Bristol or Texarkana of Canada, in the city split-in-two jurisdictions kind of way.)
The other oddity is happening now. London and Lisbon are "only" 4 hours ahead of US Eastern this week.
It won't happen, but Spain should be the same time as England. Isn't Madrid actually further west than London?
I've read up on why Newfoundland island has the half hour time zone. I think it predates them becoming a province. Wish it were just Atlantic Time like the rest of the Maritimes.
(Then there are the people who want to put Maine on Atlantic Standard Time year round. NO!!)
The other oddity is happening now. London and Lisbon are "only" 4 hours ahead of US Eastern this week.
It won't happen, but Spain should be the same time as England. Isn't Madrid actually further west than London?
I've read up on why Newfoundland island has the half hour time zone. I think it predates them becoming a province. Wish it were just Atlantic Time like the rest of the Maritimes.
(Then there are the people who want to put Maine on Atlantic Standard Time year round. NO!!)
Puerto Rico is on AST. It is too far south for DST to be practical. Obviously, the nations between the Topic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn have sunrise and sunset times that are nearly identical every day of the year, so DST is not needed.
shortwave
When I worked in shortwave radio, we repeated the previous hour of programming at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday when we reverted back to standard time. In the spring, we simply dropped an hour of non-essential (unpaid) programming in order to stay on track.
Amazingly enough, I never actually worked a time-change shift in all my years in radio. I was once at the station for the fall time change, but I was not actually on duty just yet that morning (split-shift, I think).
I live in Nashville, the easternmost media market here in TN that is still on central time. I would prefer to be on daylight time all year, but still remain in the central time zone.
When I worked in shortwave radio, we repeated the previous hour of programming at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday when we reverted back to standard time. In the spring, we simply dropped an hour of non-essential (unpaid) programming in order to stay on track.
Amazingly enough, I never actually worked a time-change shift in all my years in radio. I was once at the station for the fall time change, but I was not actually on duty just yet that morning (split-shift, I think).
I live in Nashville, the easternmost media market here in TN that is still on central time. I would prefer to be on daylight time all year, but still remain in the central time zone.
Lloydminster is only one city split between two provinces (unlike your other 2 examples which are 2 separate cities in separate states) and they do follow DST with Alberta
Saskatchewan is on Central standard time year round. The only other city in SK that observes DST is Creighton, which is on the border of Flin Flon Manitoba (Manitoba does observe DST)
Last edited:
It's a good thing Arkansas and Texas, or Virginia and eastern Tennessee, aren't in different time zones!
NOTE: Just saw Uncle Honkey's clarification on Lloydminster, which was posted while I was composing this. I'd imagine the Bristols and Texarkanas would handle DST the same way.
I'm with you on DST. I've seen some proposals that suggest merging the 4 time zones in the Continental US into two - east and west of the the Mississippi, I think.
Seems to me if we had either ST or DST all year long individuals and businesses would adapt. In the summertime if I can get home in time to enjoy a few hours of daylight I don't care if it's from 5 to 8 pm or 6 to 9 pm.
It depends where you are. Where I live, December sunrise is about 7:45am with sunset around 5:30pm EST. June is sunrise around 6:25am and sunset just before 9pm EDT. I could probably live with year-round standard time, summer days would last 5:25am to 8pm. Year-round daylight would have sunrise around 8:45am. There's not enough coffee in the world for still midnight dark at 8am. I remember this experiment in 1974. Some other places would have VERY early sunrises...as early as 4:15am with sunset around 7pm in the summer. Forget grilling, yard work or any outdoor activity after work. You'd have to squeeze that all in on the weekend. A sunrise in the 4am or 5am hour would be totally lost on me in the summer.
Yet Cuba observes DST and switches the same dates we U.S. imperialists do for some reason. Only difference is they switched at 1am this morning instead of 2 (yes, I listened to the change on Radio Reloj).
Yes, Cuba observes DST to conserve energy in their poor economy. They even went on DST year round a number of years back for a couple of years.
Several countries, such as Nicaragua, Guatemala and Honduras, have gone on DST due to energy conservation motives. It was even tried once in Ecuador!
But suppose instead of working from 8 am to 5 pm you worked from 6 am to 3 pm. You'd have the same time available for all those activities. That's my point ... let individuals and businesses adjust to the time, whatever it is, rather than trying to change it. Unlike in 1974, many businesses today are offering flexible hours and would likely be open to schedules that worked best for their employees.
There are people who have flexible work schedules but most don't. We are still largely tied to 8 to 5 (which becomes 6 most days). Yes, we can leave the clocks alone and change the start of school for the 9am sunrise months (if year round DST) but that disrupts daycares, high schoolers with after school jobs, and the businesses that employ them. Doing the time shift twice a year keeps schedules the same. No one is going to playh mini-golf at 5am, so . eliminating DST takes money away from outdoor attractions.
- Status