Overnight slot
edit
The most well-known graveyard slot in most parts of the world is the
overnight slot
, the daypart bridging the
late night
and
breakfast television/early morning
slots (between 2:00 and 6:00?a.m.). During this time slot, most people are asleep. Because of the small number of people awake at these times, the overnight shift was historically ignored as a revenue opportunity, although increases in irregular shifts have made overnight programming more viable than it had been in the past. In the United States, for example, research has shown that the number of televisions in use at 4:30?a.m. doubled from 1995 to 2010 (8% to 16%).
[2]
Since the advent of home video recording, some programs in this slot may be transmitted mainly with time-shifting in mind; in the past, the
BBC
offered specialized overnight
strands
such as
BBC Select
(an often-encrypted block providing airtime for specialized professional programmes), and the
BBC Learning Zone
(which broadcast academic programmes, such as from the
Open University
). The BBC's current "Sign Zone" strand broadcasts repeat programmes with in-vision
interpretation
in
British Sign Language
.
[3]
[4]
Some channels may carry adult-oriented content in the graveyard slot, depending on local regulations. Live events from other time zones (most often sports) may sometimes fall in overnight slots, such as daytime events from the
Asia-Pacific
region on channels in the Americas, and prime-time events from the Americas on channels in Europe for example. Some
anime
-oriented streaming services (such as
Crunchyroll
) have arrangements with Japanese networks to premiere episodes at the same time as their domestic television airings, often falling within the overnight hours in the Americas.
Since the 1980s, graveyard slots, once populated by broadcasts of
syndicated
reruns
and old
movies
, have increasingly been used for program-length
infomercials
or
simulcasting
of
home shopping
channels, which provide a media outlet with revenue and a source of programming without any programming expenses or the possible malfunctions which might come with going off-the-air. In addition, the graveyard slots can also be used as dumping grounds for government-mandated
public affairs programming
, as well as in-house programming a station group is mandated by their parent company to carry that would otherwise be unpalatable in prime timeslots. One example of the latter mandated by
Sinclair Broadcast Group
in the United States is
The Right Side
, a public affairs program hosted by political commentator
Armstrong Williams
(who has business interests with Sinclair) that is typically aired by Sinclair-affiliated stations, and is intended to air in weekend late morning slots as a complement to the national networks'
Sunday morning talk shows
. However,
The Right Side
is often programmed in graveyard slots on most Sinclair stations who locally choose to instead fill the weekend morning slots with educational shows, paid programming (including religious programs and real estate presentation shows), weekend morning newscasts and local public affairs programming, or have no scheduling room due to network sports telecasts.
Graveyard slots are also used by U.S. television stations as a de facto "death slot" for
syndicated
programs that either failed to find an audience or which a station acquired but otherwise has no room to air in a more appropriate time slot where the program would otherwise benefit. In previous years, the most often seen original programming in the overnight period were low-rated daytime talk shows and game shows being
burned off
. In many cases where a television station carries an irregularly-scheduled special event, breaking news or severe weather coverage that preempts a network or syndicated program, the station may elect to air the preempted programming in a graveyard slot during the same broadcast day to fulfill their contractual obligations. In markets with sports teams whose coaches' and team highlights shows preempt programs in the
prime access hour
before primetime, the overnight period also allows a preempted program to air in some form on a station without penalty to the syndicator, or for stations to air network programming preempted for local-interest programming,
breaking news
or weather, or sporting events.
Local news programming has also aired in the overnight slot in various forms; between the 1960s and the mid-1980s, many American television stations ran abbreviated "sign-off editions" providing brief summaries of local (and more prominently), national and international headlines, sports scores and a short- to medium-range weather forecast. (One such station, Chicago independent station
WFLD
(now a
Fox
owned-and-operated station), utilized the KeyFax
teletext
system to provide an overnight news service, known as
Nite-Owl
, that aired until the resumption of regular programming each day from 1981 to 1982.) Beginning in the early 1980s, many news-producing stations rebroadcast their late-evening newscasts (updated sparingly during
severe weather
events to incorporate live cut-ins providing current radar data and active alerts in place of the newscast's original weather segment), primarily for the convenience of late-shift workers who were not awake hours earlier for the broadcast's initial airing; this practice went into decline during the 2000s in favor of syndicated programs, extended feeds of overnight network newscasts and infomercials (some NBC affiliates that abandoned the practice years earlier, however, would bring back late news rebroadcasts to their late-night schedules after the network ceded the 1:35?a.m. ET timeslot following the 2021 cancellation of
A Little Late with Lilly Singh
). Since the late 2000s in the United States many stations have offered an increasingly early
local newscast
, which now begins as early as 4:00?a.m. in some major and mid-sized
markets
, targeting those who work early shifts or are returning from late shifts; this early newscast would fit into the overnight daypart rather than the
early morning
slot.
[2]
In a number of larger and middle markets in the United States,
MyNetworkTV
, which started as a general network in 2006 meant for primetime clearance, but due to the failure of its original programming schedule, eventually became a programming service carrying nightly rerun blocks of syndicated programming from broadcast networks and cable channels, has seen its timeslot downgraded to the graveyard slot. Generally, this is done as the stations of MyNetworkTV have become part of duopolies with major network affiliate stations (and even those owned by its parent company,
Fox Television Stations
) and those stations have used the MyNetworkTV affiliates to carry extended primetime
local newscasts
and local sports which provide steadier ratings and revenue than MyNetworkTV's non-original schedule.
The overnight period is also noted for the prevalence of cheaply produced local advertisements which allow an advertiser to purchase time on the station for a low cost, advertisements for services of a sexual nature (such as
premium-rate adult rate entertainment services
,
adult entertainment
venues, and
adult products
from companies such as
Adam & Eve
),
direct response advertising
for products and services (often marketed "
As Seen On TV
") otherwise seen during infomercials, and
public service announcements
(such as those commissioned by the
Ad Council
) airing in these time slots due to the reduced importance of advertising revenue.
Network overnight programming
edit
The
Big Three television networks
in the United States all offer regular programming in the overnight slot. Both
ABC
and
CBS
carry overnight newscasts with some repackaged content from the day's previous network news broadcasts, with an emphasis on sports scores from
West Coast
games that typically conclude after 1:00?a.m.
ET
and international financial markets with the ending of the
Australasian
and beginning of the European trading day, all of which takes place between 2:00 and 5:00?a.m. ET, while
NBC
(which dropped its
overnight news
after an eight-year run in September 1998) replays the NBC News Now streaming news program
Top Story with Tom Llamas
(previously occupied by a replay of the
fourth hour of
Today
from 2011 to 2022). Each network also produces its early morning newscast at 4:00?a.m. ET (with the exception of NBC's
Early Today
, which since 2017, has started at 3:00?a.m. ET, acting as a de facto overnight newscast in parlance) so that it may be
tape-delayed
to air as a lead-in to local news.
The graveyard slots' lack of importance sometimes benefits programs; producers and program-makers can afford to take more risks, as there is less
advertising
revenue
at stake. For example, an unusual or
niche
program may find a chance for an audience in a graveyard slot (a current day example is
Adult Swim
's
FishCenter Live
, which features games projected onto the video image of an
aquarium
), or a formerly popular program that no longer merits an important time slot may be allowed to run in a graveyard slot instead of being removed from the schedule completely. However, abusing this practice may lead to
channel drift
if the demoted programs were presented as channel stars at some time.
[5]
From 1988 to 2014 in the United States, some cable networks (such as
Nickelodeon
, the
Discovery Channel
and
The Weather Channel
) aired educational programs during these hours as part of the
Cable in the Classroom
initiative, intended for educators to tape for later presentation to their students.
Japanese over-the-air stations broadcast
late night anime
almost exclusively, starting in the
late night
slot at 11:00?p.m., but bridging the graveyard slot and running until 4:00?a.m.. Because advertising revenue is scant in these time slots, the broadcasts primarily promote DVD versions of their series, which may be longer, uncensored, and/or have added features like commentary tracks, side stories and epilogues.
[6]
United Kingdom
edit
In the UK, overnight is defined as 12.30 to 6.00?a.m.; full-time overnight broadcasting began on
ITV
in 1987 and 1988 and on
Channel 4
at the start of 1997, although into-the-night programming has bene a regular fixture on Channel 4 since 1988.
The main BBC channels have never broadcast through the night -
BBC One
has simulcasted the
BBC News Channel
overnight with
BBC Two
's only foray into continuous television being
BBC Learning Zone
. From 2000 to 2013,
BBC One
repeated recent programmes during this time period with in-vision signing as part of a strand called
Sign Zone
before simulcasting with
BBC News
(in a simulcast between
BBC One
,
UK feed
and
international feed of BBC News Channel
for the second part). Since then, the BBC News simulcast has generally begin between midnight and 1.00?a.m..
BBC Two
shows
Sign Zone
and repeats for the first part and the rest of the high is given over to "This is BBC Two" which broadcasts excerpt from forthcoming BBC Two programmes. Notable examples of digital channels are
BBC Three
and
BBC Four
, which stay on the air until 4.00?a.m. and then close down, marked in schedules are
This is BBC Three
and
This is BBC Four
respectively.
ITV broadcasts the home shopping programme
Shop Direct
, repeats of daytime programming and the ambient sound strand
Unwind with ITV/STV
until 5.05?a.m. weekdays (with
Tipping Point
following it) and 6.00?a.m. weekends. Channel 4 shows repeats and films during the overnight hours, while
Channel 5
airs
Supercasino
, some repeats and Teleshopping. Most digital channels during this time either go off air or simulcast shopping channels, while some stay on the air.
7.30 p.m. weeknights
edit
The 7.30?p.m. half-hour is traditionally the first primetime slot of the evening in the UK. In 1989, ITV began broadcasting a third weekly showing of its highly-rated soap opera,
Coronation Street
, in this slot on Friday evenings, adding to existing episodes in that slot on Mondays and Wednesdays. As ITV's biggest rival, the BBC, broadcast its own biggest soap opera,
EastEnders
, in the same slot on Tuesdays and Thursdays, this created a situation where the 7.30 slot was effectively "owned" by ITV for three days a week and the BBC for two. With little chance of beating their biggest rival in the ratings, neither network would schedule valuable content in their "off" nights, creating a graveyard slot
for that network
by default, even though the slot itself was extremely valuable in across-the-board ratings terms. ITV would often use the slot for regional programming, or consumer affairs shows not expected to rate highly, whilst BBC1 would often air repeats. Only on rare occasions did either network break the unwritten agreement not to schedule one show against the other.
During the 2010s and 2020s, the growth of streaming and catch-up TV services made this scheduling pattern less important, and while ITV would still only very rarely schedule
Coronation Street
against
EastEnders
, it began scheduling its second highest rating soap opera,
Emmerdale
, against
EastEnders
on some occasions (for example, one-hour specials for major storylines). In January 2022, the status quo around the "ownership" of the 7.30?p.m. slot essentially came to an end, with ITV opting to move
Coronation Street
to 8.00?p.m. and
Emmerdale
to 7.30 on a permanent basis, in order to broadcast an hour-long evening news bulletin. The BBC typically continues to air
EastEnders
at 7.30?p.m.
United States
edit
Outside of the traditional overnight slots, various examples of graveyard slots in the United States exist. While the reasons vary, often these time periods are viewed with much lower interest from programmers as opposed to other periods of the day (particularly prime time from Monday to Thursday nights).
Weekdays, noon to 1 p.m.
edit
Before the 1970s, the noon hour was often viewed as a popular "lunch slot" where daytime shows such as
Jeopardy!
were popular with a larger-than-average audience that included both college and high school students and employees either returning home or eating at a restaurant on their lunch break, in addition to the traditional American daytime audience of stay-at-home housewives. However as the 1970s dawned, many network affiliates began introducing local midday newscasts, which resulted in the time slot becoming a "death slot". Local news in this slot usually consists of stories from the morning newscast repeated with spare updating for newer details to such earlier items and stories that have happened since (including local political meetings), business and consumer news segments (including live
stock market
prices),
farm reports
in mainly rural markets, and community interest segments where organizations are highlighted in an interview setting, along with paid placement
advertorial
segments for businesses.
Stations that do not carry news in this slot usually air syndicated fare or an infomercial; in numerous cases,
educational programs
can be buried in this slot or any other daytime slot as a form of
malicious compliance
with the mandate for such programs. Mainly to accommodate affiliates in the
Central
and
Mountain
time zones that choose to air local news at noon in their respective markets, CBS still offers an option for affiliates to air
The Young and the Restless
at noon Eastern (11:00?a.m. Central), but actual participation in this varies by individual station. (NBC also allowed this option for
Days of Our Lives
until September 2022, when the soap moved to co-owned streaming service
Peacock
to accommodate the new afternoon newscast
NBC News Daily
.)
After the 1970s ended, there were very few network programs that had survived for more than a year in the noon timeslot, including
Ryan's Hope
and
Super Password
. However, there have been numerous network shows that have aired in the second half-hour of this timeslot; examples include
The Young and the Restless
(whose first half-hour has dominated the timeslot since 1988),
Loving
(and its short-lived spinoff
The City
),
Sunset Beach
and
Port Charles
. (The latter two were canceled after a few years on the air.) Since the mid-2000s, the 12:30?p.m. timeslot on most NBC and ABC affiliates has been usually filled with local news and lifestyle programs.
Weekdays, 4 to 5 p.m.
edit
When the noon time slot became unfavorable in the late 1970s, networks began doubling up airings of their noon shows at 4:00?p.m. However, this time slot had also quickly become unfavorable as many stations chose to preempt network offerings in favor of more lucrative syndicated programs during this time, including nationally syndicated talk shows hosted by
Mike Douglas
,
Merv Griffin
,
Dinah Shore
and
Phil Donahue
(all of which were primarily entertainment-focused with the exception of Donahue's which focused on serious subject matters including politics and cultural issues). As a result, the networks were faced with increasingly fewer affiliates airing network programs in this time slot and eventually abandoned this practice, with ABC canceling the soap opera
Edge of Night
at the end of 1984 and CBS ending production on
Press Your Luck
in the late summer of 1986, though the two networks would continue to program occasional
afterschool specials
for children during the hour until the mid-1990s (with
ABC
being the last Big Three network to end that practice as well as any moribund effort to program the 4:00 hour in January 1997).
During the 1980s, a slew of newer nationally syndicated talk shows made their debut, with the most prominent example being
The Oprah Winfrey Show
. Originally a locally based morning show in Chicago,
Oprah
made its debut as a nationally syndicated talk show in 1986 and soon came to dominate the time slot in many markets over the course of its 25-year run. Since the 1990s, the expansion of local television news has led to stations without major syndicated hits choosing to offer
local news
in this hour. By 2012, most networks' daytime programming had ended at 3:00?p.m. ET, and many stations have begun offering up to three hours of local news, interrupted either by a 4:30 syndicated program or the 6:30 network news.
Friday night death slot
edit
Perhaps the most infamous example of a graveyard slot, ironically, has been during prime time on Friday nights since the 1990s. Before this decade, several television series during the late 1970s and 1980s (and well into the early 1990s) had become widely popular among viewing audiences, and these programs?including
Dallas
and
Falcon Crest
on CBS and
Miami Vice
on NBC?became so popular that most programs that were scheduled against them were doomed to cancellation because of the competition, which marked the beginning of a phenomenon known as the "Friday night death slot."
[7]
[8]
[9]
However, as the 1990s progressed, fewer viewers (particularly those in the much-sought after 18-49 demographic) stayed home to watch television on Friday nights, leading to a revival of the phrase in a new context in that a series on Friday was still more likely to lose money and lag in viewership compared to shows on other nights, regardless of its direct competition.
[10]
[11]
More importantly, with
media conglomerates
now owning both television networks and film studios (e.g.,
Comcast
's ownership of
NBC
and
Universal Pictures
under its
NBCUniversal
umbrella), the former now especially tends to downplay programming by corporate demand to attract moviegoers to theaters on the traditional opening night for major films.
Because of this trend, networks have since programmed inexpensive
reality programming
or
news magazines
on this night instead of scripted programs. Consequently, scripted programs that do end up airing on Friday night have often been moved there from more lucrative Monday-Thursday evening time slots due to poor performance, and this is often an indication that the series is facing cancellation, with its fate set in some cases either by extenuating circumstances or by certain goals for the producer or distributor in mind. The former was the case in the 2004-05 season with the ABC family sitcom
8 Simple Rules
, whose ratings declined following the death of lead actor and protagonist
John Ritter
, while the latter pertained to the Fox sitcom
'Til Death
, which was kept alive on Friday nights well into the 2009?10 season to garner enough episodes for an ultimately short-lived
syndication
deal.
Since 2005, CBS is the only major network that continues to air a full line-up of first-run scripted programming on Fridays, and has been a strong performer on this night for the better part of the past three decades with a number of successful (if older-skewing) serials and
police procedurals
featuring veteran actors, with former
Miami Vice
lead actor
Don Johnson
(in the titular role for
Nash Bridges
from 1996 to 2001) and former
Magnum, P.I.
lead
Tom Selleck
(playing the lead character in
Blue Bloods
since 2010) among the more prominent examples. Its former semi-sister network,
The CW
(previously co-owned by CBS parent
Paramount Global
and
Warner Bros. Discovery
and their respective predecessors until
Nexstar Media Group
, its largest affiliate operator, bought a majority stake in the network from the former two conglomerates in 2021) also maintained a lineup of younger-skewing scripted fantasy and action dramas from 2010 to 2022, with similar success. Historically,
ABC
had notable success on Friday evenings with its
TGIF
lineup of sitcoms aimed at family and teenage audiences beginning in 1989, with its popular newsmagazine
20/20
serving as a lead-out, but the programming block's ratings began to wane in the late 1990s, in part also influenced by a botched attempt by CBS (called the
CBS Block Party
) to compete full-force with ABC during the 1997?98 season before it eventually abandoned this strategy in 2000, first in favor of more adult-targeted comedies and later the aforementioned primetime serials.
Despite being a known graveyard slot, there have been notable exceptions to this rule, with
The Brady Bunch
,
Sanford and Son
,
Full House
,
Homicide: Life on the Street
,
Reba
,
Ghost Whisperer
,
CSI: NY
,
WWE SmackDown
,
Last Man Standing
,
Shark Tank
,
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
and the aforementioned
Blue Bloods
among the more notable examples. In addition, a handful of cable channels have also had success with Friday night programming, with the most prominent being
Disney Channel
which since 2006 has aired a number of scripted sitcoms that appeal to a pre-teen audience including
Wizards of Waverly Place
,
Phineas and Ferb
,
The Suite Life on Deck
,
Jessie
and
Girl Meets World
, and has largely served as somewhat of a successor to sister network ABC's original
TGIF
lineup (albeit with a younger audience in comparison). Many cable networks, including Disney Channel as well as
Hallmark Channel
, also premiere original made-for-TV movies on this night several times per year as an attempt to keep potential movie-goers at home.
Saturday nights
edit
Until the 1990s, many popular series also aired on Saturdays, with more notable examples including
Gunsmoke
,
Have Gun ? Will Travel
,
All in the Family
,
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
,
The Bob Newhart Show
and
The Carol Burnett Show
during the 1960s and 1970s on CBS;
The Facts of Life
,
Hunter
,
Amen
,
227
, and
The Golden Girls
and its spin-offs (most notably
Empty Nest
) during the 1980s and early 1990s on NBC; and
T. J. Hooker
,
The Love Boat
and
Fantasy Island
during the late 1970s and 1980s on ABC. Most networks maintained a full schedule, though the night was also often used for airing movies and select sporting events. Many successful programs aired on Saturdays during the 1990s as well including
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman
,
Early Edition
and
Walker, Texas Ranger
on CBS;
Sisters
,
The Pretender
and
Profiler
on NBC; and
Cops
and
America's Most Wanted
on Fox.
Since then however, a similar situation to Friday nights emerged, with the same issue of fewer viewers available to watch television on Friday nights now extending to Saturday nights as well, although to a more pronounced degree. For that reason, the mainstream U.S. networks have largely abandoned original programming on Saturday nights in favor of reruns, with only CBS maintaining a limited presence anchored by its newsmagazine
48 Hours
. ABC was the first of the Big Three networks to cease offering original first-run programming (outside of newsmagazines and sports) on Saturdays; the network had lost ground on that night to NBC, CBS and later Fox after
The Love Boat
ended in 1986 (with only the 1991?96 police procedural dramedy
The Commish
lasting more than three seasons on that night in the time since), and largely failed in subsequent years to buoy its standing against its Saturday competition (such as with its move of stalwarts
Who's the Boss?
and
Growing Pains
from their previous Tuesday and Wednesday slots in September 1991, with both later being joined by fellow veteran and Friday
tentpole
Perfect Strangers
to help form the
TGIF
-inspired sitcom block
I Love Saturday Night
, which only lasted for five weeks in February 1992; after experiencing sharp ratings declines following their move to Saturdays,
Boss
and
Pains
ended after that season while
Strangers
got an abbreviated eighth season, burned off in the Summer of 1993, to properly close out the series). Its last attempt was in the 1998?99 season with a lineup initially consisting of
America's Funniest Home Videos
(which had seen its ratings drop following the departure and replacement of original host
Bob Saget
and its displacement from its original Sunday slot to make room for
The Wonderful World of Disney
the previous season), a
revival
of
Fantasy Island
and
Cupid
; neither survived past that season (with
AFV
being relegated to occasional specials before it was revived as a regular series in 2001), prompting ABC to give up and run movies in the slot instead starting with the 1999?2000 season.
The last major efforts by the Big Three networks to program Saturday nights ended in 2001, when CBS
canceled
Walker, Texas Ranger
and NBC?which ended its primetime scripted programming efforts on that night following the 2000 cancellations of
The Pretender
and
Profiler
?failed with the original incarnation of the
XFL
. CBS, however, continued to offer first-run shows on Saturdays until the 2003?04 season (when
crime dramas
Hack
and
The District
ended their runs due to declining viewership) before switching to a lineup consisting of mainly
crime drama reruns
and
48 Hours
(which was transitioning to a
true crime
documentary format) the following season (2004?05), becoming the last legacy broadcast network to give up on any meaningful efforts to program the Saturday primetime slot; it would, however, later air the Canadian?French co-production
Ransom
on that night during the middle of the television season between 2017 and 2019, and the final episodes of each week of the American version of
Love Island
(which aired its episodes over multiple nights in a similar manner to fellow reality series
Big Brother
, which also offered first-run Saturday episodes from 2000 to 2005) aired on Saturdays during its second season in 2020. Fox continued to air
Cops
and
America's Most Wanted
on Saturday nights until both programs ended their network runs between 2011 and 2013 (with
Cops
moving to Spike (now
Paramount Network
) and
America's Most Wanted
moving to
Lifetime
, where it remained until its cancellation in 2013; Fox would revive the latter series in 2021). The CW initially broke from the modern-day sports/newsmagazines/reruns concept when it began programming Saturday nights for the first time during the 2021?22 season, offering a lineup of original first-run programs in the form of unscripted comedy, magic and reality competition series; these efforts largely ended two seasons later (2023?24), when the network began airing selected primetime
Atlantic Coast Conference
football and basketball games under a sublicensing agreement with
Raycom Sports
, with movies and documentaries otherwise filling the Saturday night timeslot.
In recent years, a new trend has emerged where a show that is considered to be a ratings failure (or is already canceled) is moved to Saturday nights to
finish airing its original episodes
, with the
CBS
miniseries
Harper's Island
in 2008?09, NBC's
The Firm
in 2011?12, and ABC's
The Alec Baldwin Show
and CBS's
Million Dollar Mile
in 2018?19 being some of the most notable examples. Otherwise, the night is used by the networks to air encore presentations of their weekday primetime series' most recent episode, or in ABC's case (until the 2015?16 season and more sporadically thereafter) occasional broadcasts of more recent theatrical movies, as well as to air sports programming including
college football
(e.g., ABC's
Saturday Night Football
) on all of the major networks,
NBA basketball
on ABC,
NHL hockey
on NBC (until its NHL rights were transferred to
TNT
under a broader deal with parent company
WarnerMedia
(now Warner Bros. Discovery) in 2021), and
UFC mixed martial arts
fights on Fox (until 2019, moving to
ESPN+
thereafter with occasional preliminary matches airing on either
ESPN
or ABC). Local stations also use the night to carry specialized local news programs, including documentaries and political debates, where it would otherwise air their affiliate network's encore repeats.
Despite being a known graveyard time period, some channels have gained or maintained success on Saturday nights. Perhaps (and arguably) the most famous example has been NBC's late night
sketch comedy
variety
program
Saturday Night Live
, which has been a staple of that network (and also that of the American pop culture conscience) since its 1975 debut, and has gone on to launch the careers of dozens of comedians and other actors; Fox would provide a formidable competitor to
SNL
in 1995 with
Mad TV
, a taped satirical sketch program that lasted for 14 seasons (until its initial cancellation in 2009) and was that network's only successful late-night offering. Other notable exceptions have included
Nickelodeon
, which successfully aired a Saturday evening lineup of first-run programs aimed at pre-teens and teenagers?originally branded as
SNICK
for its first 12 years, and then as
TEENick [Saturday Night]
from 2005 to 2009?from August 1992 to November 2021 (including such popular series as
Clarissa Explains It All
,
All That
,
Are You Afraid of the Dark?
,
Kenan & Kel
,
iCarly
and
Victorious
), and
Lifetime
and
Syfy
, both of which have had respectable success with made-for-TV movies that regularly aired in Saturday primetime (Syfy during the 2000s up through the mid-2010s, and Lifetime since the early 2000s).
Premium cable networks
have typically used Saturday nights to showcase pay-cable premieres of theatrical and made-for-cable films, first-run
specials
(including
concerts
and
stand-up comedy
performances), and/or
combat sports
events.
HBO
began running all of its movie premieres exclusively on Saturdays in June 1992, marketing the promise of "a new movie every Saturday night" throughout the year; the frequency of movie premieres in the designated slot substantially declined in the early 2020s largely due to most of HBO's distribution partners (outside of sister studio
Warner Bros.
) migrating their pay-TV release windows to streaming competitors of co-owned
Max
(particularly services operated by their
parent
studios
like
Hulu
and Peacock), an issue that has also affected rivals
Showtime
,
Starz
and
MGM+
in recent years as streaming platforms have proliferated (including those with corporate ties to major studios) and consolidation has taken place in the
studio business
.
[12]
[13]
[14]
Albeit with some exceptions,
boxing
and
mixed martial arts
matches (including events shown on pay-cable and
pay-per-view
) also have typically been held on Saturdays; HBO and, to a somewhat lesser degree, Showtime aired most of their
fight cards
(including events produced by their respective pay-per-view units) during the latter part of Saturday primetime starting in the early 1990s until both networks discontinued their live sports offerings. (HBO, which began airing boxing events exclusively on that night in 1992, ended its boxing telecasts in 2018; Showtime, which continued to air some of its boxing and post-2007 MMA events on Friday nights, shut down its sports division amid cutbacks instituted by parent Paramount Global in 2023.)
To this day, many television stations in the United States have often filled their weekend late night slots with off-network syndicated reruns of primetime drama series, long-form interview programs (including
Entertainers with Byron Allen
and
In Depth with Graham Bensinger
), movie showcases (including horror-themed
Svengoolie
and B-movie showcase
Off Beat Cinema
, both staples of the Saturday late-night slot), and weekend editions of infotainment news programs (often with curated segments repackaged from earlier in the week or, in the case of
Entertainment Tonight
, special retrospect editions focused on a single topic). Co-distributors
Sony Pictures Television
and
CBS Media Ventures
, for instance, offer a selection of episodes from the previous season's runs of their popular weekday game shows
Wheel of Fortune
and
Jeopardy!
to air on weekends (most commonly in the Saturday early fringe slot), usually airing in their traditional weekday slots. Historically, music and variety shows such as
Hee Haw
,
The Lawrence Welk Show
,
Don Kirshner's Rock Concert
,
Solid Gold
,
Showtime at the Apollo
and
Soul Train
, as well as weekly competition programs including
American Gladiators
and
Star Search
, also often filled weekend late night time slots (in many cases either complementing or even competing against
Saturday Night Live
). During the weekends (particularly on Saturdays), the prime access hour also featured popular weekly syndicated series including
The Muppet Show
during the 1970s, and the movie review program
At the Movies
(most well known under its original title of
Siskel
&
Ebert
) during the 1980s up to the 2000s.
Weekend mornings and afternoons
edit
Because people generally stay out later on Friday and Saturday nights than other nights of the week, people also tend to sleep in longer on weekend mornings. The weekend morning 5:00?7:00?a.m. time slot is most commonly used by stations to air public affairs and (on Sundays)
televangelism
programs, although some air local morning newscasts within the time period. Nationally syndicated specialty news programs, including
Matter of Fact
(hosted by former NBC News and CNN anchor
Soledad O'Brien
and mandated to air on stations owned by its production company,
Hearst Television
) and
Full Measure
(hosted by former CBS News anchor
Sharyl Attkisson
and mandated to air on stations owned by its production company, Sinclair Broadcast Group), also air during weekend morning timeslots in many markets, often complementing their affiliate networks' and local stations' morning news programs and
Sunday morning talk shows
.
As has been the case since the beginning of television, the major networks have also generally programmed weekend afternoons with sporting events. That being the case, particularly when no sporting events are airing (either from the networks or from syndicated distributors such as Raycom Sports), there is very little incentive to watch television after news and educational programs (on Saturday mornings) or political talk shows (on Sunday mornings) end, especially when a local team?particularly an
NFL
or college football team of either local or regional interest?is airing on one station, prompting other stations to outright refuse to put on competitive programming. Most stations in this situation air infomercials, movies, or little-watched syndicated fare in this slot, and often use this time period to air educational and public affairs programming mandated either by station groups or federal broadcast regulations, as well as regional lifestyle programs (such as
Texas Country Reporter
, which has been a weekend staple on most television stations serving the U.S. state of Texas since the 1970s). Prior to 2016, when it was not carrying content from sister network
ESPN
,
ABC
aired reality programming reruns in the late afternoon slot (such as
Million Dollar Mind Game
).
Sunday nights (7?8?p.m. and 10?11?p.m. during the NFL season)
edit
Because of overruns from Sunday afternoon National Football League (NFL) games, Fox (in the earlier 7:00 slot) and, to a lesser extent, CBS (in the latter 10:00 slot) have had difficulty launching shows in these Sunday evening time slots. To handle overruns, Fox and CBS both use different strategies to handle prime time programming, with other networks attempting various means of
counterprogramming
to meet parity on the night:
- Fox
, which
primarily carries
Sunday afternoon
National Football Conference
(NFC) road games, originally preempted scheduled programming during the 7:00 hour if an NFL game overran its time slot, often to the frustration of fans of series such as
King of the Hill
and
Malcolm in the Middle
, which often had episodes joined in progress or unseen in the Eastern or Central time zones until they were seen again during summer reruns (months after the preceding NFL season ended). The network has since addressed the issue by clearing out the time slot completely for an NFL
post-game show
titled
The OT
during the league's regular season and setting aside a portion for short-run animated series under its
Animation Domination
(or, from 2014 to 2019,
Sunday Funday
) block, though mid-season replacement series have still had problems finding an audience in the time slot.
- CBS
, which
holds the rights
to most Sunday afternoon
American Football Conference
(AFC) road games, protects its acclaimed newsmagazine
60 Minutes
by delaying its entire prime time schedule if a game overruns (a practice adopted by the network in
2012
), resulting in the show scheduled for the 10:00?p.m. ET slot being pushed well past its original start time and occasionally being bumped to allow local CBS affiliates to air their local newscasts as close to 11:00?p.m. ET as possible.
[15]
[16]
After a series of new programs failed in that timeslot, beginning in 2010, CBS attempted to stabilize it by moving an established series (usually one co-owned CBS Media Ventures already offers to stations in off-network syndication) there, starting with
CSI: Miami
which moved from its original Monday night slot to Sunday nights but was nonetheless canceled after two seasons in its Sunday time slot. For the 2019?20 season, CBS used the 10:00?p.m. slot to wrap up two of its veteran series with the final season of
Madam Secretary
airing in the fall followed by the final season of
Criminal Minds
(which once served as a lead-out to
Super Bowl XLI
in 2007) in the winter and spring, while for the 2020-21 season it aired what ultimately turned out to be the final season of
NCIS: New Orleans
.
- NBC
holds the contractual rights to the NFL's
Sunday Night Football
package, which occupies the entire evening schedule during the fall and early winter; the pre-game show
Football Night in America
generally leads off the night in the 7:00?p.m. hour. Per NFL broadcast rules, the pre-game show utilizes a carousel reporting format to cover early games (approximately 1:00?p.m. ET) before the conclusion of late (4:00?p.m. ET) NFL games (including most games on the West Coast), and then transitions to a quick rundown before focusing on the upcoming game within the last 20 minutes before kickoff. After their NFL coverage ends in mid-January, NBC usually airs some limited first-run and encore programming for the rest of the season. When the network
held the rights
to air Sunday afternoon AFC games from 1965 (when it acquired the television rights to the AFC's predecessor, the
American Football League
, from
ABC
) until losing those rights to CBS in 1998, the latter-day issues with regards to CBS were virtually nonexistent since most of the programs that NBC aired in the 7:00?p.m. ET slot usually trailed
60 Minutes
(following its CBS debut in September 1968) in the ratings.
Dateline NBC
, the longest-lasting effort among a string of otherwise unsuccessful hard newsmagazines launched by the network during the 1990s, expanded to Sundays to compete full-force with
60 Minutes
?offering lighter or true crime-focused fare in contrast to its CBS counterpart?in March 1996; the Sunday edition of
Dateline
aired in the 7:00?p.m. slot for much of the time thereafter until the 2017?18 season (often subject to delay by late-afternoon games during NBC's last two years as the AFC broadcaster, and usually placed on hiatus during the NFL season following the 2006 transfer of the
Sunday Night Football
package from previous rightsholder
ESPN
), before briefly returning in a two-hour
Weekend Mystery
format for the latter half of the 2022?23 season (occasional episodes of varying airtime and length have also aired during the midseason and Summer months when it was not on that season's regular Sunday schedule). The most significant programming controversy during NBC's tenure as the AFC broadcaster came in 1968 during a high-profile
West Coast game
that had its broadcast end prematurely in the Eastern and Central time zones to accommodate a
made-for-TV adaptation
of
Heidi
, the fallout from which prompted the network (and the NFL) to permanently change its procedures to allow games to finish before regular programming begins.
- ABC
, which has simulcast
Monday Night Football
games carried by sister network ESPN (which assumed the rights to the package from ABC in 2006) since 2022 and had last aired
Sunday afternoon NFL games
in 1951, has for most of its history since the show premiered in 1990 carried
America's Funniest Home Videos
, a relatively low-cost and low-risk program popular for family viewing, in the early time slot on Sunday nights. After the network stopped airing
weekly movie presentations
in the 9:00?11:00?p.m. ET slot in the 1998?99 television season, ABC had somewhat greater success later in the evening with scripted dramas (such as
The Practice
,
Desperate Housewives
and
Brothers & Sisters
); since the 2017?18 season, however, the final three hours of the network's Sunday lineup have been occupied primarily by reality competition and game shows (a noted exception being police procedural
The Rookie
, which aired in the 10:00 slot from 2019 to 2022, before moving to Tuesdays for the 2022?23 season). The NFL's preference in 2005 for a marquee Sunday night game as opposed to Mondays, which became difficult to envision due to the success of such aforementioned scripted dramas (at the time,
Grey's Anatomy
and
Desperate Housewives
) as well as the then-recently launched
Dancing with the Stars
, played a factor in
Monday Night Football
moving to ESPN in 2006. While some ABC affiliates occasionally simulcast
Monday Night Football
if a local team is playing (due to NFL rules requiring broadcast stations in team markets to simulcast national games not carried on network television), many others (including ABC's
owned-and-operated stations
) have deferred to rival stations in their market due to conflicts involving the live performance stages of
Dancing with the Stars
which aired on Monday nights for much of that show's history.
Dancing
moved from ABC to sister streaming service
Disney+
in 2022, in order to allow the network to air occasional simulcasts of
Monday Night Football
, and was replaced on ABC's 2022?23 fall lineup by the reality dating series
Bachelor in Paradise
once the simulcasts ended; the network returned
Dancing
to its lineup in 2023 (with Disney+ continuing to carry it as a simulcast), but placed it on Tuesday nights to accommodate the
MNF
games.
- The CW
and co-predecessor
The WB
have had varied scheduling strategies on Sunday evenings since the forerunner network (which launched nine months prior) began programming that night in September 1995. The WB aired first-run programming (usually sitcoms) during the 7:00?p.m. hour for all but four seasons (only two being consecutive) thereafter; for the seasons that did not have first-run shows fill the hour, the early slot was repurposed to showcase earlier-season reruns of popular WB series (
7th Heaven
from 1998 to 2000,
Gilmore Girls
in the 2002?03 season,
Smallville
in 2003?04, and
Reba
in 2005?06), under the umbrella subtitle
Beginnings
. (The WB built on this concept when the Sunday lineup was extended to 5:00?p.m. ET in September 2002, with the two extra hours being occupied by the
EasyView
block, which offered same-week encores of selected WB primetime shows; this block would carry over, without any branding, to The CW for the successor's first two seasons.) The CW mainly filled the 7:00 early slot with various primetime reruns for its inaugural 2006?07 season, although new episodes of WB holdover
Reba
(airing its shortened sixth and final season) ran during the second half-hour between November 2006 and February 2007; for the 2007?08 season, the network ran
advertorial
entertainment programs (
CW Now
and
Online Nation
) that were widely considered a failure, with repeats of other shows taking over the slot by midseason. The CW chose to lease out its Sunday timeslot to production company Media Rights Capital (now
MRC
) for 2008?09, and placed the reality series
In Harm's Way
, also considered a failure, into the hour; the network's struggles to program Sunday evenings led it to turn the five-hour timeslot over to its affiliates following that season. The CW would resume programming Sundays after a ten-year hiatus in the 2018?19 season; however it bucked the convention of programming the 7:00?p.m. hour (which American broadcast networks have programmed regularly since 1948?49, outside of a four-year period between the 1971 enactment and the 1975
revision
of the since-repealed
Prime Time Access Rule
, when that responsibility was delegated to their affiliates), opting for its Sunday lineup to maintain the same 8:00?10:00?p.m. window it programs during the rest of the week before finally expanding into the 7:00 hour (filled mainly by drama reruns) in October 2023.
- UPN
, which merged with The WB to form The CW in September 2006, never regularly programmed Sunday nights, with its only contribution to the night being in early 2001, when it aired lower-tier
XFL
football games on Sunday evenings during the league's only season in its first iteration. Many of the network's affiliates however, chose to air its weekend encore block (which was conceptually identical to the aforementioned
EasyView
, debuting in September 2000 in the slot previously held by its
UPN Movie Trailer
film package) on Sundays, commonly in the prime time or late fringe slots, until the network's closure. Its
de jure
successor
MyNetworkTV
has never programmed the night since it launched in 2006.
Opposite popular annual programming specials
edit
Programs such as the
Academy Awards
(on ABC since 1976), the
Super Bowl
and the
Olympic Games
(on NBC at least partially since 1988) have been known to draw so many viewers that almost all efforts to
counterprogram
against them have failed. As such, broadcasters have traditionally countered these events with either reruns or movies. In past years, seasonal airings of popular classic films such as
Gone with the Wind
,
The Wizard of Oz
and
The Ten Commandments
have also been known to draw sizable audiences. The
Super Bowl
has historically attracted more unusual fare (such as
Animal Planet
's
Puppy Bowl
, a football-themed special featuring
puppies
at play),
[17]
with most aiming to counter the halftime show to emulate Fox's success with its live
In Living Color
special in 1992. However, as all four major commercial networks now have some tie to the National Football League's television deals (current through Super Bowl LXVIII in 2034, with ABC's addition to the rotation under the eleven-year contract agreements signed in 2021 also granting all four networks alternating rights to the championship
[18]
), major networks have aired little to no new original programming on the night of the Super Bowl under an unsaid
gentleman's agreement
.
[19]
Opposite dominant television series
edit
On occasion, a regularly scheduled program may have this kind of dominant drawing power. Notable examples have included NBC's
Thursday primetime schedule
in the 1980s and 1990s that featured
The Cosby Show
,
Seinfeld
and
ER
, and
American Idol
during its original run's peak on Fox from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s (simultaneous with the peak of
reality television
in the U.S. during that period) ? each of which was dubbed a "Death Star" by the other networks because of their prolonged dominance in the ratings, consistently ranking among the
most watched broadcasts in U.S. television history
. Many programs that competed against such shows often either flopped or (in the case of an existing series) saw their ratings decline significantly to the brink of cancellation.
Australia and New Zealand
edit
In Australia and New Zealand, the overnight daypart runs from midnight until 6:00?a.m. This slot is generally filled by American sitcoms and dramas that failed in their home market but are required
to air in some form
to justify the network's investment, or archived content, along with
teleshopping
programmes, and other American programs (mainly lower-tier syndicated newsmagazines, and delayed broadcasts of breakfast television programmes).