On radio Nielsen Audio (known as Arbitron until it merged with
Nielsen Holdings in 2013), the leading
audience measurement service in the
United States, divides a weekday into five dayparts: morning
drive time (6:00–10:00 a.m.), midday (10:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.), afternoon drive (3:00–7:00 p.m.), evenings (7:00 p.m.–midnight) and overnight (midnight–6:00 a.m.). In radio broadcasting through most of the 1990s, dayparting was also used for censorship purposes. Many songs that were deemed unsuitable for young listeners were played only during the late evening or overnight hours, when children were presumably asleep. Even today, the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) dictates less stringent decency requirements for programming aired between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. local time. The drive time dayparts coincide with
rush hour; these dayparts are traditionally the most listened-to portions of the schedule, since these are the times when most people are in their cars, where
vehicle audio remain nearly ubiquitous. Most stations (both talk and music) air local programming in one or both drive time slots. The midday, or "at work" slot, has in recent years become particularly prone to
voice-tracking, as large station ownership groups cut costs and use supposedly local DJs at multiple stations (often in different time zones). Music stations often are careful not to repeat songs during the midday shift, as they generally have a captive audience, and will often use "9 to 5 No Repeat Workdays" and all-request or specialty lunch hours to lure listeners and air a broader variety of music. Evenings are a popular time for
syndicated programs, while overnights are generally automated, either with or without a voice-tracked DJ, though there are a few niche programs that target special audiences in the overnight and early morning hours (
Coast to Coast AM,
Red Eye Radio and The
National Farm Report, among them). On weekends, music stations often air syndicated programming, without regard to time slots (though Saturday nights often remain live with either local or syndicated hosts, especially on
oldies and
country music stations, to take requests) and talk stations air niche network shows or
brokered programming. Religious programming often airs on Sunday mornings. In talk radio, where voice tracking is impossible and syndicated content is live and national, these lines blur somewhat.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show (formerly
The Rush Limbaugh Show from 1988 to 2021) airs in a time slot that is in midday in all time zones, but other than that and overnight shows such as
Coast to Coast AM, a show that airs in a slot corresponding to afternoon drive time in the
Pacific Time Zone (for instance,
The Lars Larson Show) would fall into a less-listened-to evening time slot on the East Coast. Similarly, a show that airs during early midday on the East Coast (such as the
Glenn Beck Program) would be aired during the morning drive time period on the West Coast, and may not live up to the expectations of listeners expecting local, informative content. The general solution for this problem is to
broadcast delay programming to fit schedules, though another problem develops where West Coast listeners are unable to interact with those programs unless they stream them live from a station east of them, or they have a live video simulcast via a television channel or streaming services.
On television ) In the United States, dayparting is by far the most common among the
Big Three television networks (
ABC,
NBC and
CBS), all three of which continue to produce programming for a wide array of audiences (a programming strategy known as
full-service radio). This is also generally true of other countries where the major terrestrial broadcasters have more general audiences. Cable and satellite channels, most of which cater to smaller niche audiences, generally use much simpler programming strategies: infomercials in the morning,
rerun (often in
block programming or
marathon format) in the daytime, and feature programming in prime time, replayed in late night (though this structure varies, some channels may opt not to lease out certain time periods to infomercials and program overnight and morning time periods with entertainment programs instead).
United States cable news outlets typically program a network-style morning show, rolling news coverage in the daytime with opinion programming or long-form documentaries at night;
ESPN follows a similar format, but with sporting events in prime time, while its opinion programs air primarily on sister outlet
ESPN2. Stations such as
MTV,
BET and
VH1 that feature music programming may devote their morning and/or midday blocks to
music videos. Children's channels such as
Disney Channel and
Nickelodeon generally air programs for preschool children during the early morning hours in the form of blocks such as
Nick Jr. and
Disney Junior,
PBS carries a similar lineup called
PBS Kids, while broadcast networks carry syndicated content; some air older programs (such as reruns of classic cartoons such as
Looney Tunes and
Tom and Jerry on
Cartoon Network) at midday while children are at school, while programs for older school-age children and high school-aged teenagers air in the late afternoon slot. During prime time, programs that are generally aimed at the entire family (such as movies, which Disney Channel often airs) are common. Cartoon Network switches from children's programming content later in the evening to carry adult-oriented live-action/animation block
Adult Swim, which runs through late night.
Daytime On
television, like on radio, the day is divided into similar dayparts, although the times have been blurred somewhat. In general,
breakfast television programs air between 7:00 and 10:00 a.m.; on
television network, these are usually long-form news programs featuring entertainment, light fare and features aimed toward women. Until the 1970s or so, children's programs such as
Captain Kangaroo aired in this time slot (since that time, however, the school day has started earlier, making such programs less viable). After breakfast comes
daytime television, which targets college students, older retirees and the ever-shrinking base of stay-at-home moms and housewives; the
soap opera,
tabloid talk show,
court show and (much more rarely since the 1990s) the
game show are popular genres in this daypart. In the United States and Canada, a local midday
news broadcasting also airs during the noon hour on most stations as well (this is not always the case; some stations may schedule their midday newscasts up to one hour earlier). PBS and other noncommercial
public broadcasting networks generally broadcast educational programs aimed at children, especially toddlers and preschool children (such as
Sesame Street) throughout the early and later part of the daytime slot, while some show other alternative programs such as cooking programs during the midday period. Cable and satellite television networks generally broadcast an occasional movie during the daytime slot or acquired programs during prime time. The later part of the daytime slot can sometimes be targeted at children ages 7–12 and teenagers ages 13–16 when they come home from school. The U.S. networks
Fox and
The WB had children's program blocks during the mid-1990s into the early 2000s, and even prior to that, CBS's
Match Game exploited this audience to set ratings records in the 1970s. PBS traditionally broadcasts educational children's programs until approximately 5:00 p.m. in most areas, some PBS stations broadcast children's programs until 6:00 p.m., and some even until 7:00 p.m.. From 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. (in the United States, this can sometimes be as early as 4:00 p.m.), newscasts are usually shown on most television stations. Local news is usually coupled with a half-hour network newscast and possibly a syndicated news program. Unlike morning news shows, these are more generally targeted programs and feature more hard news stories (network evening newscasts, unlike their local counterparts, tend to limit weather and sports coverage unless it is a notable news story). In the United States, stations affiliated with minor networks, or those that have no network affiliation at all, usually air syndicated sitcom reruns or continue daytime programming during this daypart. Following the news,
prime time begins with what is usually referred to as the "
fringe time" or "access period" (so named after the
Prime Time Access Rule, former legislation in the United States which previously
required networks to not show network-supplied programming in that hour). In the United States (and Canada, to a certain extent), two game shows,
Wheel of Fortune and
Jeopardy! have dominated this time slot since the 1980s, and they usually compete with syndicated entertainment
newspaper magazines (such as
Entertainment Tonight) and syndicated reruns of popular primetime programming like
Seinfeld and
Friends. Additional local newscasts have become increasingly popular in this time slot.
Evening Prime time is the highest-profile television daypart, from 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 or 11:00 p.m., depending on the network and time zone. The highest rated programs on television often air during prime time, and almost all scripted programming (except soap operas, game shows, and more recently,
sketch comedy shows) air during the prime time slots. Occasionally, especially during the 1980s and in the 2000s, programs that were "daytime oriented" sometimes enter the prime time daypart, such as the popular nighttime soap opera
Dallas and the game show
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Usually the main reason for the high profile of prime time television is due to the fact that many people who come home from work and school tend to watch television rather than engage in any other activity. In North America, Friday nights are often considered to be the "
Friday night death slot", due to the concept that many shows scheduled on or moved to Friday nights would not last long before cancellation due to low ratings. Some shows have achieved success on Fridays even with the notion of the "death slot" (examples include CBS's
Hawaii Five-0,
Blue Bloods and
MacGyver, programs within the now-defunct
TGIF lineup, and more recently
Shark Tank, both aired on ABC in the U.S.). Other "death slots" include Saturday nights, the 12:00 noon and 4:00 p.m. weekday time slots (at least during the 1980s; both time slots have since been abandoned by all networks and given to local news or syndication), and the time slot or slots immediately opposite popular shows such as
American Idol or the
Super Bowl (see also
Super Bowl counterprogramming). The phenomenon of fewer viewers on Friday and Saturday is in part because most people (particularly the younger viewers that advertisers often seek) are usually not home to watch television on Friday and Saturday nights as they participate in leisure activities on those days, and as a result, programs that air during this time usually receive low ratings. However, some cable channels aimed at children, teenagers or
preadolescence audiences (such as Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel) have experienced success with original programs that they commonly air in the perceived Friday and Saturday night death slots; Nickelodeon in particular, has aired first-run teen programs during Saturday prime time since 1992 with the creation of the
SNICK block (later renamed
TeenNick from 2004 to 2009), as well as
ABC's "
TGIF" block from the 1980s and '90s. Following prime time,
late-local news often air, followed by
late night television programs. Late-night shows are predominantly targeted toward younger male audiences (college students and people who suffer from
insomnia are also a large audience for late night programs) and feature a common format of a male host delivering a
stand-up comedy routine (known as a
monologue) centered around current events, followed by several guests and a house band's performance.
Overnight After the late night shows, programming varies; this time slot between approximately 2:00 and 6:00 a.m. is known as overnight (or the "
graveyard slot" due to the extremely low numbers of viewers). This daypart is the only portion of the day not monitored or reported on by Nielsen in the U.S. in most circumstances, although many stations still consider this a viable programming daypart and actively sell breaks. Some stations may
sign-on and sign-off for the night (though this has become less common since the 1980s), air
infomercial, or air news or reruns of other programming. It is also often used as a timeslot to "burn off" (air programming the station is required to run) shows the station is contractually obligated to run but is not concerned with viewership, often after an announced cancellation or poor ratings performance. This daypart can also be used to air programming intended to be recorded via
DVR and watched later ("
time shifting"), or a spot to air programming preempted from another daypart due to breaking news, live sports, or other program interruptions. Many stations run rebroadcasts of local late news broadcasts at 2:00 a.m., with visual disclaimers that indicate the programming is pre-recorded, with additional updated live segments for weather (hurricane or winter storm updates), breaking news, live sports scores (late games and on occasion an early game going long), or an updated highlights package of a local team's games not finished during the original broadcast (for example, a market with East Coast based team plays a team in the Pacific Time Zone with a 10:30 p.m. start with the game ending around 1:30 a.m.). In many areas, PBS member stations may also air encores of children's programs on a digital subchannel at this time. In some countries, programming aimed at adult audiences may also air during the late night hours, such as
softcore pornography. In the United States, a handful of cable television channels such as
Cinemax and
AXS TV have used this practice, but this is forbidden on American broadcast television. An exception to this is if the broadcast signal is encrypted; this allowed
pay television that transmitted over broadcast television in the 1970s and 1980s such as
ONTV to air pornographic films at night. Until the end of the 1990s (for example
BBC One by November 1997) most TV stations around the world would
sign-off between around
midnight and 3am local time, and showed a
test card until the
sign-on in the morning. Most often at the main public stations (like BBC1 in Britain) showed the
national anthem before closing down.
Weekends Weekends have a slightly different setup than weekdays. On Saturdays, morning shows share time with the
saturday-morning cartoon, where the networks usually fulfill federally mandated regulations requiring the airing of educational or children's shows (such as
regulations on children's television programming in the United States, where at least three hours of this programming must air weekly across all television stations; although most of the children's programs have increasingly become more live action in nature than animated). Sunday mornings, often known as a graveyard slot (particularly very early on Sunday morning) feature more morning shows,
public affairs designed for very small audiences, additional infomercials,
religious broadcasting, and a series of influential political and news analysis/interview programs known as the
Sunday morning talk show. Weekend afternoons (both Saturday and Sunday) often feature different sporting events to varying degrees. During the fall, ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC in the United States all broadcast football (all four networks air
college football and
NFL football), the
NBA airs on ABC,
college basketball airs on CBS, Fox and ABC during the winter and spring, while the
NHL airs on ABC during this time period.
Golf (on NBC And CBS),
auto racing (NBC and Fox for
NASCAR, though NBC sometimes airs
IndyCar racing) and
baseball (Fox) occur during the summer; in addition, sports anthology series such as the
CBS Sports Spectacular,
Canada's
CBC Sports Saturday and ABC's
Wide World of Sports broadcast a broad variety of sports with a smaller following. Most stations also find time when sports are not airing to air large blocks of infomercials and some syndicated programs during this time slot. Cable networks and some broadcast stations frequently air feature films during weekend afternoons. In North America, not many new programs air on Saturday nights, with the focus more on movies, reruns and sports. This is largely due to the increasing status of Saturday prime time as a "death slot", which led most American broadcast networks to abandon first-run scripted fare on that night by the mid-2000s. In Canada,
CBC Television has historically aired Saturday night NHL
ice hockey nationally under the title
Hockey Night in Canada, dating back to the early days of radio. Other Canadian networks use the Saturday night slot to meet
Canadian content quotas (a practice colloquially known as the "Canadian content"). The U.S.-based Fox network established a permanent sports block on Saturday night in 2012, carrying a range of sports including
Pac-12 Conference Fox College Football,
Major League Baseball on Fox,
NASCAR on Fox and the
Fox UFC on a periodic basis with reruns airing when sports events are not scheduled (this block displaced Fox's reality series
Cops from its time slot of over two decades); ABC carries
Saturday Night Football during the fall, then switches to a mix of
NBA on ABC, movies, news magazines and prime time reruns for the rest of the year. In the U.S., late night programming on Saturday features one prominent sketch comedy show, NBC's
Saturday Night Live, while other stations carry syndicated reruns. Sunday evening is generally treated as a regular weeknight, with popular prime time programs airing. In the United States and Canada, prime time network programs start one hour earlier on Sunday evenings (6:00 or 7:00 p.m., depending on the time zone) than on Monday through Saturdays, an exception to the since-repealed Prime Time Access Rule as part of a 1975 revision that allowed networks to program the time slot on Sundays. No network programming currently airs in the Sunday late night slot. ==United Kingdom==