Late-night television
is one of the
dayparts
in television
broadcast programming
. It follows
prime time
and precedes the overnight
television show
graveyard slot
. The slot generally runs from about 11:00?p.m. to 2:00?a.m., with variations according to the time zone and broadcaster.
In the United States and Canada, the term is synonymous with the
late-night talk show
, a type of
television comedy
talk show
and
variety show
. Thus, the late-night programming block is considered more important in North America.
[1]
On most major-network stations, a
late-night news
bulletin airs at the beginning of the block.
Due to the complications of
effects of time zones on North American broadcasting
, live professional sporting matches such as
baseball
,
hockey
, and
basketball
played in
Pacific
and
Mountain Time Zone
cities, such as
Denver
,
Los Angeles
,
Phoenix
,
Portland
, and
Seattle
, are often played in the primetime of the Pacific and Mountain Time Zones but late night in the
Central
and
Eastern
time zones, and their lateness often contributes to a perceived
East Coast bias
in sports media.
In the
United Kingdom
, the late-night spot is from 11:00?p.m. to 12:30?a.m. and not seen as a priority;
ITV
,
Channel 4
and
Channel 5
air repeat programs in the time slot, and the
BBC
's channels (
BBC One
,
Two
,
Three
and
Four
) primarily show
BBC News
, air movies, or repeats.
[2]
Similarly,
Australian
and
New Zealand
television primarily air American late shows, lower-priority imported series, late movies or overflows of sports programming in the late-night time slot.
On
cable television
, programming strategies in this time slot include
timeshift channel
of prime time programs and, in the case of
children's television series
channels,
sign-on and sign-off
and allowing more adult-oriented fare for the overnight hours under another brand. Two examples are the children's channels
Cartoon Network
and
Nickelodeon
, which changes over to
Adult Swim
and
Nick at Nite
, respectively, at an hour when most pre-adolescent children go to sleep. Adult Swim and Nick at Nite typically airs series programming, such as reruns of
sitcom
, that may have coarser language and more adult themes than Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.
[3]
After 11:00?p.m.,
Japan
airs adult talk or variety shows as well as
late-night anime
.
[4]
This is also true of the United States?based cable channel
Cartoon Network
, which targets children and young teens during daytime and primetime hours, but changes over to its
Adult Swim
brand in late-night slots, which targets young adults with its content.
[5]