American culture

The broadcast day

The three broadcast channels have a fairly ritualized program day. From the 1950s until the 1980s, each program would begin with an intonation from the network, signaling to the affiliates to start airing the network feed.

CBS would intone a high-pitched bong sound, heard most notably in the color ident from the 1960s, in the first note. NBC would start each broadcast with a beep, and ABC would start with a much more curt bip. With the advent of satellite systems, these tones became obsolete and were discontinued.

During the week, morning shows such as The Today Show or Good Morning America and talk shows dominate the morning hours; soaps dominate the early afternoon; talk shows, tabloid newsmagazines, local news and gameshows dominate the late afternoon and early evening; prime time begins at 8 p.m. (7 p.m. CST and MST), lasts for three hours, and usually offers a combination of first-run and repeat sitcoms, one-hour dramas, newsmagazines, news specials, movies of the week and bowdlerized feature films. Programming becomes increasingly more risqué as the night progresses, with programs (more or less) suitable for young people running earlier, and programs with more adult content running later in the evening.

Late night begins after the 11 o'clock news (10 o'clock news in the Central and Mountain time zones) and contains still more talk shows (generally comedy-themed) — David Letterman and Conan O'Brien being two examples — and then often a series of infomercials, off-network syndicated shows and reruns of old shows, late night movies or overnight news shows such as ABC World News Now or CBS's Up to the Minute, until the cycle begins again.

On weekends, sports, religion and children's cartoons grab more time, and the three broadcast networks fulfill their FCC-mandated obligation to contribute to the public good with the Sunday-morning interview shows.

The schedules of cable networks vary widely, as each network has a specialty which dictates content and programming decisions, nearly all channels though produce original programming in combination — even C-SPAN, which once broadcast only Congressional hearings, now offers talk programs and interview shows.