Why do some TV station have wacky starting times for programs?

[debodun]

Instead of starting on the hour or half-hour, they start and stop somewhere in between.
e.g.
Program A starts at 9:10 and runs to 9:50
Program B runs from 9:50 to 11:15
Prgram C is on from 11:15 to 12:40

 

[Pepper]

What stations, besides PBS do that? Not the Primetime ones.

 

[Paladin1950]

CSPAN on Sunday nights has Questions for the Prime Minister, on from 9:05-9:35 pm. Now that I think of it, during the baseball season, some games start 7:07 and 8:07 pm.

 

[JustDave]

What stations, besides PBS do that? Not the Primetime ones.

I've seen it a couple of times on Primetime. At least I think I did, but it's rare. But your right about PBS. They seem to have shorts segments of business to take care of that don't require a half hour to deal with. By business, I don't necessarily mean ads. It's often about some current issue that is not part of a scheduled program.

 

[OldFeller]

I experience this on free digital antenna TV and I suspect that its driven by the number and length of commercials they sell in that time slot because it varies for the same shows each week.
The starting times are listed in guides as being on the hour or half hour mark but the shows start up to 5 minutes beyond those marks on the clock.

 

[JustDave]

A bit off topic, I can remember when TV was still a new thing, there were a number of lunch or after school shows for kids that only last 15 minutes. Even then I felt like that wasn't long enough, and I was curious why they weren't a half hour.

 

[OldFeller]

A bit off topic, I can remember when TV was still a new thing, there were a number of lunch or after school shows for kids that only last 15 minutes. Even then I felt like that wasn't long enough, and I was curious why they weren't a half hour.

There was a time in early TV when the NEWS was 15 minutes. It's interesting when you see how hard it is for stations to actually fill a half hour with real news. By a quarter after, you're watching made up stories of limited interest and overly long explanations of the weather.

 

[Oldeagle66]

There was a time in early TV when the NEWS was 15 minutes. It's interesting when you see how hard it is for stations to actually fill a half hour with real news. By a quarter after, you're watching made up stories of limited interest and overly long explanations of the weather.

I limit the ABC nightly News to the 90 second teaser. That tells it all and enough for me.