Is an hour sometimes too long for a programme?
Bill Clinton
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Some of you might think that I'm making a strange point, but sometimes rather than wishing favourite programmes were longer, I sometimes wish some types were shorter as they are a lot to commit to. Half an hour is a nice length for programmes on certain subjects and I feel there is a trend these days for making almost any old thing into an hour long programme.
Whilst in the 90's or 80's say most prime time slots on magaziney style subjects were just half an hour, think of Holiday, This Is Your Life, Tomorrow's World, if they were around today they'd probably be an hour long, Watchdog is one of those programmes, it IS still around today and you guessed it, it goes out in a one hour slot.
Making programmes such as Masterchef, The British Bake Off, Who Do You Think You Are, Watchdog an hour long has its upsides and downsides, one is if you are a fan of these programmes and really enjoy the content you are nicely settled for nearly a whole hour, but on the other hand if you just want to watch a bit of TV you often now find that almost every programme is an hour long one one very samey subject and you start to get the feeling of having bitten off more than you can chew.
The trend is towards what I would call more "magaziney" shows on food, celebrity geneaology, celebrity fronted docs on this and that, consumer affairs and property, I don't think Rogue Traders would have stood up to a full hour which is probably why they absorbed it into Watchdog.
What could be next to upgrade The One Show to a full hour each weekday, I'd often thought of how much less variety there seems to be in peaktime now, but I have only just thought that more and more one hour long shows are also part of being the culprit, if there's one sure way for there to be less variety it's not only to have the same types of shows repeatedly but to have less shows go on for longer!
Whilst in the 90's or 80's say most prime time slots on magaziney style subjects were just half an hour, think of Holiday, This Is Your Life, Tomorrow's World, if they were around today they'd probably be an hour long, Watchdog is one of those programmes, it IS still around today and you guessed it, it goes out in a one hour slot.
Making programmes such as Masterchef, The British Bake Off, Who Do You Think You Are, Watchdog an hour long has its upsides and downsides, one is if you are a fan of these programmes and really enjoy the content you are nicely settled for nearly a whole hour, but on the other hand if you just want to watch a bit of TV you often now find that almost every programme is an hour long one one very samey subject and you start to get the feeling of having bitten off more than you can chew.
The trend is towards what I would call more "magaziney" shows on food, celebrity geneaology, celebrity fronted docs on this and that, consumer affairs and property, I don't think Rogue Traders would have stood up to a full hour which is probably why they absorbed it into Watchdog.
What could be next to upgrade The One Show to a full hour each weekday, I'd often thought of how much less variety there seems to be in peaktime now, but I have only just thought that more and more one hour long shows are also part of being the culprit, if there's one sure way for there to be less variety it's not only to have the same types of shows repeatedly but to have less shows go on for longer!
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Its when you get programmes like Deal or No Deal that are padded out to an hour where there is a problem.
On the other hand, with the amount of adverts these days you can't get so much into half an hour
Channel 4 documentaries are frequently too long and again would be a better programmer if edited tighter. But of course an hour programme has more time for adverts than a half hour one.
I agree.
If it is a drama like Game of Thrones then an hour per episode seems perfect.
Having lunacy like DONO stretched out to an hour or more beggars belief, though.
It was fine as 45 minutes. Now it is stretched out, there is more grief, backslapping etc..
No need for it.
Deal was OK at about 45 minutes, half an hour would be even better. If TV is a guilty pleasure sometimes it's better to get in tighter and more manageable doses than ending up having to sit out your entire day and evening with hour long programmes.
Have there been any GOT episodes as long as 60 minutes?
http://screenrant.com/game-thrones-season-3-longer-episodes/
And of course if you're watching on UK TV they run 4% faster.
Similar thing with The Newsroom, the first episode is 72 minutes and the rest are 50-60.
Man, HBO makes some awesome stuff. Wish we had a channel like that over here. I know Sky Atlantic shows a fair amount of HBO stuff but the adverts kinda ruin it (and that's adverts on top of subscription costs, of course).
Off the top of my head the ones that are 45 minutes are all "Extra" programmes such as Good News, QI, HIGNFY, Room101.
On Dave they stretch those into 1h with ad breaks.
30min progs on Dave are 40mins and people will probably now be used to the schedule of things at 9pm, 9:40pm, 10:20pm etc.
I'm just guessing that BBC1 don't want that. They want on the hour or half hour and the news at 10pm so there are restrictions on what they can do. BBC2 is similar on week nights although on Saturdays they tend to relax a little.
I wait until a few minutes after broadcast and all Sky1/Atlantic/Living shows are ad free on On Demand.
Been nearly a year since I've watched the linear channels.
Or just record them live and start watching them about 15 minutes in.
But the breaks still get in the way. Especially on premium cable shows where there is no natural break to put them.
When C4 showed The Returned they were often going into a break in the middle of a piece of music and continuing it after the break.
So intrusive.
With Sky On Demand it's not streaming, they're downloaded to the box.
I've got the whole series of Hannibal (and several others), on the planner, ad free, ready to watch.
Agreed.
An hour is fine for me when it's justified by the content. I have watched some programmes and it was blatantly obvious there was 30 minutes of content stretched out to an hour.
But are they available to watch forever (as long as you have a Sky subscription), as a recording would be?
Some programmes have an auto delete date, most don't. It's stated on the EPG.
The 'expiry date' is when it leaves the On Demand service and not a delete date.
Ratings for DOND would probably improve if the programme length was reverted back to 45 mins
I always think Restoration Home with Caroline Quentin only has about 30 minutes of content which has been padded out to an hour.
Cut the first ten minutes with all the double introductions of the judges and presented dancing and zapp the long ads,
Cut the false pantomime of who to choose and deadlock..
They could easily fit it in to 30 mins!
As for Watchdog, they could cut that down by getting rid of Anne Robinson and the stuff in-between Rogue Traders.