Television Scheduling is the order of when each individual programme will be broadcast on various television channels, broadcasters decide when each television programme should be aired according to its popularity and when it will reach its full potential in terms of attracting its target audience. These factors all taken into consideration as the more viewers gained by each broadcaster means the more money made, various methods are put in place by broadcasters in order to ensure they attract the widest audience possible continuously throughout the day, adaptations to attract various audiences throughout the day are evident due to many factors including; occupation,age,gender and class.
Some of these techniques are used throughout the television industry in order to effectively raise popularity for new programmes. Hammocking being a method used in order to do exactly this, a new or unpopular show is scheduled in between two well established popular shows with the hope to 'inherit' the audience from the two shows either side who may be watching passively and therefore not be willing to change channel. Offensive and defensive scheduling is also a key technique used by major broadcasters such as BBC and ITV, offensive scheduling is where a confident broadcaster may air their programme at the same time as another popular show on a rival channel with the intention to inherit the rivals audience. Defensive scheduling being the complete opposite to this as the broadcaster may acknowledge the unbeatable viewership statistics and therefore air a less popular programme that may attract a particularly niche audience, although this audience is much smaller a loyal viewer base means a consistant flow of viewers watches the programme each week/day. Zoning is a technique where programmes of a specific genre are broadcast one after the other with assumption the viewers will keep watching and not switch to a different channel, this technique clearly successful due to some programmes having their own individual channel where the programme is continuously aired, proving die hard fans are willing to continuously watch repeats over and over again. The technique of stripping is used by broadcasters to develop an audience who are familiar with the pattern of scheduling on their channel, allowing a loyal fan base to be built up who may return each day as they know their desired programme will without doubt be aired at that time, BBC news being a prime example of this as a reliable audience is attracted daily to consume the news they release without fail.
