How does TV scheduling work in the US between the East and West coasts?

[Team Sheep]

Like do you have seperate variations of a channel for the East and the West? One channel for ET and CT, then a seperate one for MT and PT? Because if a show started at 9pm ET it would be airing before the watershed in the West, and it would be a bit weird watching a big movie or something at like 6pm.

For example, WWE Smackdown is on at 8 ET/7 CT. Does that mean that it's on at 8 MT/7 PT out in the west? I'd like to know how it works.

[Shadow]

If a show airs at 8 Pm on the east coast it'll air at 8 PM on the West Coast. Not rocket science.

[Team Sheep]

Well no I ask cause a show that starts at 8pm on the East coast doesn't start at 8pm CT does it.

[thedamndest]

Not if it's the Superbowl.

[thedamndest]

There aren't multiple channels for each timezone. I don't know why they group Eastern and Central together. Maybe someone in Pacific knows if they group Mountain and Pacific together as well. It probably has to do with paying one less time to air the program. But it wouldn't be feasible for Smackdown to air at 5 pm instead of 8 on the west coast.

[Team Sheep]

Yeah I get that. I'd just like to know if MT and PT are paired up like ET and CT are.

[Xero]

Pretty sure, as Thed said, Eastern and Central are combined and I assume Pacific and Mountain are combined.

In terms of start times, most things outside of sports games are not aired live. I know RAW, for example, airs at 9 on the west coast.

It really depends on if the channel has two separate feeds or not. Back in the Monday Night Wars, for example, they repeated Nitro right after itself. This was so the west coast would get it around the same time we would and they didn't have a separate feed (at the time).

Of course, now-a-days, some content providers actually carry both feeds on the same system.

The networks are a different story, though. Even within the same timezone times can vary because of a difference in local programming.

[Shadow]

Starts at 9 on the East Coast as well.