If they HAVE to be like that why did they get away with airing a couple extra minutes tonight then? And it has happened before apparently too.

If it HAD to be 45 minutes on the dot, surely they would have been made to make it 45 minutes on the dot? Either that or give it a 50 minute time slot.

What complete nonsense. You talk as if the BBC have no control over their own programmes at all. They commission the programmes and must therefore determine the running time.

As for some 'facts' - for the last 4 weeks the BBCs saturday night schedule has been the same and every programme has kept the same running time (except Over the Rainbow this week) and Dr Who has had 4 different start times. During the same period ITVs saturday night programmes (6-10pm) have started at the same time for all 4 weeks.

OTR has a different running time every week due to the different number of contestants who have to perform. The first episode of DW was an hour long. These are facts. I fail to see how you think given that OTR has to be a different running length every week that DW could start at the the same time every week. There is no way whatsoever it could be the case. Your comparison to ITV is silly because at this time they have no live shows on.

Let's get back to what's annoying me, if it's too long OK, but BBC start when you said so and overrun into the bloody Dorothy bow-lox rather than start DW 3 mins early (anal?)

I agree with you. I was just asking why it would have happened, it seems silly to purposely start something a few minutes early.

I don't really get why it was a bit longer so they decided to start it early.

Why not start it at 6, schedule it for 50 minutes give us a couple more minutes of DW and have OTR start 5 minutes later.

If is HAS to be 45 minutes to start at 6 and finish for OTR then it should have been 45 minutes. I was sat waiting for it at 6 with my dinner as I times it to be ready for 5:50pm but I would have been well pissed of if I timed it to sit down at 6 and it had already started.

Simples

Simple - because OTR starts AFTER Dr Who.

So what? that has no relevance at all. The start time of DW is still connected to the length of programmes that follows it because the BBC have to make sure the evening schedule fits the total running time across the evening as a whole. If they followed your advice there would be holes in schedule with nothing to fill it some weeks. It's basic scheduling, yorkie.

You will see that when TXF is on they have the same situation with the schedule on ITV. The evening as a whole does not run to a set time slot. It cannot be done when you have programmes with different running times throughout the series.

The official guidelines as towards duration are given here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/delivery/durations/

WebbieOTW is quite correct in that it says that "The physical programme you deliver must conform to the actual duration requirements shown below" (for a 45 minute slot, the actual duration is 44 minutes). Further down that page it also says

"Programme tapes must be delivered at the correct duration - this is essential in order to ensure that schedules can be made to work to time and that key juntions are met (e.g. with live News).

Programmes delivered which are not at the correct duration will be returned to the programme department or company for re-editing to the correct length"


However that page does go on to say that:

"Occasionally the actual duration of your programme may need to vary from the guidelines above - in this case your commissioning executive or CBBC on-air will advise you of the actual duration to which you should deliver."

and also:

"Any variation to the agreed duration must be formally agreed (by writing or email) as specified here."

As DW has occasionally been longer than 44 minutes then either

a) its agreed slot is longer than 45 minutes (say 50 minutes), but the schedulers try to squeeze it into a 45 minute slot anyway

or

b) its agreed slot is normally 45 minutes but the commissioning executive has sometimes indicated a longer episode is needed

or

c) the production team has had trouble cutting an episode to its required 44 minutes and have managed to negotiate (and get written agreement for) a longer slot - presumedly the fact that DW is seen as one of the flagship Saturday night programmes makes this negotiation easier than would normally be the case.

Matthew

Yet another pointless "whinge" thread majoritively populated by people who a) have no concept of TV scheduling and b) believe that they deserve to have an entire night of programming scheduled for their own convenience...just use a TV Guide (onscreen or paper) and if you can't watch it live then catch it on iPlayer, catch-up, repeat or repeat or repeat...or work out how to use your recording mechanism properly and watch it back from there but please stop wittering on about schedule times - it affects nothing, not ratings not anything.

Now, if you'll excuse me: I'm going to watch tonight's episode on catch-up when my other half returns and then watch Confidential on my hard-drive recorder...how difficult will it be? Not at all.

There are actually two issues discussed in this thread:

The first is that DW is not at a consistent scheduled time (which is annoying - the BBC manage this with most other programmes, just not early evening Saturday schedules; although once upon a time they did manage this too!)

The second is that this evening (and in a few times in the past) DW did not start at the scheduled time but actually started a few minutes too early (which in my case means I have the first few minutes of DW on the end of my recording of Total Wipeout rather than at the beginning of my recording of DW where is really belongs).

Matthew

The first I have no problems with. I just remember to look in the tv guide, epg or elsewhere to check the start time.

The second would have annoyed me though if I hadn't already been watching.

I think we are just going to have to disagree on this as I cant see your point at all. There is only one variable length programme OTR so Wipeout and Dr Who could start at the same time followed by OTR and then the remaining programmes to follow on (with variable start times). I dont see why that is such a difficult thing to do if the BBC wanted to.

I'd settle for the buggers starting it at the time stated on the tv guides. My daughter was at work and I promised to record it for her. When I switched on at 5.58 it had already started. Are the BBC taking the p?

I hope that you set your recorder to go on early then or you will miss the start of the programme. Not that you deserve to or anything!

I'm sure it never used to be pushed around during S2. I used to get back from work with about 10 mins to spare. It was lovely and gave me something to look forward to =] I'm sure that's partly why I got so obsessed with the show. Why is it so bad now? I wouldn't mind if iPlayer wasn't so rubbish at uploading stuff right after (actually not so bad with DocWho) but OTR, some of the election result footage was uploaded way after programs shown afterwards and even election results from the next day!)
Anyways I know the cast have been unhappy about it right?

this series has had the most regular slot since series 1. Bar this one episode all episodes have (and it seems will) continue to start within around 15 minutes of each other - around 6.15pm - 6.30pm. In series 2 the start times were all over the place, ranging from 6.35 - 7.25. It was the series the show was pushed around the most.