🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <11213@fluke.COM> inc@tc.fluke.COM (Gary Benson) writes:
>Someone made the point that the broadcasters lifeblood in commercial
>television are the commercial, a point I agree with and thought sure someone
>would have made by this time in the discussion.
>
>I am a little surprised that noone has asked about how networks time the
>station breaks...after all, when you have hundreds of local affiliates all
>"going to a commercial" simultaneously, you gotta believe there is some
>signalling going on. I mean, every station in the nation doesn't have a
> [you get the idea...]

Having no access to local TV or any cable TV, I get all my programming off
satellites (Gee, just like the local stations :-). Every station does indeed
know EXACTLY when a station break will occur and whether it should be local
or if the network is just interrupting the program. AND, it's not some
magical device that lets them know this. Before the networks begin broad-
casting say for the prime time session, they display a chart showing when
and for how long a break will occur. Kind of like:

	Position 1:	18:12:05	35 seconds
	Position 2:	18:22:40	1:15 minutes
	...

Maybe what we need are VCR's, etc. with a lot better programming and timing
characteristics.

jb@aablue