What is the deal with the TV networks? Can they EVER get a damn football game off the air ON TIME? There’s nothing worse than sitting down to watch “The Simpons” or “The Amazing Race” on DVR, only to find out you recorded 30 minutes of football or some other show that was delayed. Then you’re left with just the first half of the show you wanted — ultimately left to wonder how the episode ended.
This past Sunday, CBS aired the season premiere of “The Amazing Race 12.” Girlfriend Kelly has been a devoted fan from the very first season. I got hooked a few seasons ago, then got away from it, but the late-night reruns on GSN have convinced me to get back into the show this season. As we do with all of our favorite shows, the DVR is set to automatically record all new episodes. And since we decided to go out for a movie Sunday night, we came home ready to watch the first leg of the race on DVR.
The cable box recorded about 25 minutes of the always very geriatric and boring ”60 Minutes,” followed by 35 minutes of the show we actually wanted to see. Why? Because the morons at CBS actually expect football to be done with by 7:00. But when football ends at 7:25 or 7:30, that means “60 Minutes” starts late, and so does everything else following it. Rather than being realistic enough to just schedule “60 Minutes” for 7:30 and “Race” for 8:30, they continue to dream of a fantasy world where football ends on-time — even though their own constant “TV Timeouts” for commercial breaks don’t really help that cause very much.
Unfortunately, there’s no way for the DVR to know everything’s being delayed 25 or 30 minutes. Even though it can automatically keep track of “scheduled” timeslot changes for a particular show, it can’t keep track of “on the fly” changes. You can’t blame the DVR — there’s no way to “tell” it the shows are delayed. It’s not like CBS sends out an automatic schedule update to whatever company ultimately is responsible for the program guide that lives in the DVR. Even then, I think the DVR only downloads new schedules overnight.
Hopefully someone will develop new technology to get around this problem. Maybe instead of going strictly by time, the DVR could be triggered to record a show based on some sort of special signal, encoded into the programming kinda like the data that provides Closed Captioning, or the inaudible tones syndicated radio shows use to trigger local commercials via the automation systems at local stations. That way, the DVR knows it should begin monitoring CBS at 8:00, but doesn’t actually begin recording until it gets that “trigger signal” marking the actual start of “The Amazing Race.”
The other idea I had would be if there were a way for the networks to provide “real-time” updates to their broadcast schedules… but this is really not a great idea. You don’t know exactly when the game will end. If you were recording “60 Minutes,” which comes on right after the game, CBS would have to somehow tell your DVR to NOT record at 7:00… and send out similar updates at 7:01, 7:02, and every single minute after, until it’s finally OK to begin recording. Getting those updates from CBS, to your cable company and then into your DVR is something that, I’d imagine, would take more than just one minute. And those constant updates would probably clog up a lot of the bandwidth that should rightfully be devoted to high-speed internet and digital phone. After all, that’s probably why most DVR’s are set to get their schedule updates in the middle of the night.
What do you think? Feel free to leave your comments below.
I completely agree with you!
Here’s what I say they should do (they as in the sports associations, like NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB):
Let’s say the TV guide says that the game is going to end at 10:00. The game MUST end no later than 10 on the dot, or else this will happen:
Let’s say both teams go into this 0-0. If this game does not end by 10:00, the game will automatically end at 10:00, regardless of score, and both teams will have a loss on their record, prompting them to re-do it the next day, and they’ll have to keep on re-doing it until they get it right.
Hehehe… I don’t know if we need to go THAT far. After all, making them replay the game the next day is only going to make more people mad when more shows get bumped to make room for that game. At least on Sundays, 4-7pm is cleared out for football. If the game has to be played again on Monday, you’d be wiping out three hours of scheduled programming, making even more people mad.
The entire problem could be fixed if CBS and Fox would just acknowledge the fact that football is going to run 30 minutes late, and just set the rest of the schedule that way. List “60 Minutes” as starting at 7:30 and “Amazing Race” for 8:30. Adjust the starting times for “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy.” At least then, the DVR’s have a better chance of recording the right shows.
Also, let’s say this is a “Game 7″ of a championship…if the “game 7″ (or any deciding final game for a champion to be crowned), then there will be no winner that year. other playoff rounds before that will simply re-do the match next-day.