Defending the delay – Why Sky 1 are airing Flash, Arrow & Legends of Tomorrow in March.
Explaining the delay with Flash, Arrow & Legends of Tomorrow on Sky 1
We get a lot of imported tv shows in this country, and one of the major complains we hear on the site daily is the gap between (mainly) US imports and UK air dates… The delay with Flash, Arrow & Legends of Tomorrow on Sky 1 this year has particularly upset people e.g. “So yet again the uk have to wait…”, “Are you taking the mick?… I WANT IT NOW!”, “Nearly 6 weeks after US air date????” etc…
Firstly i’d say, deep breaths… 6 weeks isn’t an eternity, it’s just longer than you’re used to. Secondly, Sky aren’t doing it out of spite, there’s a pretty sound and logical reason for it.
US scheduling is somewhat of an erratic thing… I’m not taking about the mid-season break, which is when they split a season’s run into two distinct halves. I’m talking about the breaks within the normal week-on-week run. Shows can be on one week, skip two weeks, back for a week, off for a month, back for three more, then take a break again… This can happen for various reasons. Sometimes it’s a US holiday we don’t celebrate over here, or big sporting event and they don’t want to air a show whilst people are off doing other things. Sometimes there are production issues which means shows haven’t actually finished the episode by the time they need to air it (e.g. when Carol Ann Susi, the voice Howard’s mother died, they delayed filming so they could rewrite episodes to cover it in the show). The other common reason is something called ‘sweeps’…
The ‘sweeps’ periods, which usually occur around November, February, May, and July, are the points in the US scheduling where special rating are taken to use to work out adverting rates across the TV networks. For example, if you have a show where there’s a huge storyline which culminates in a major character being killed off, you may want to hold on to that massive episode so it airs in the middle of ‘sweeps’, as it’s likely to bring in extra viewers. More viewers makes that time slot more valuable to advertisers. What’s ridiculous is even if you were then to go an air an hour long show about paint drying in that time slot a few weeks later, the numbers say that time slot is more valuable. Yes, it’s a stupid system, but thats what they do… Sweeps can also have the opposite effect, where a network may choose to hold back an episode of a show so it’s not having to compete in a sweeps battle. Everyone else is putting out their ‘best’ stuff, so they’d rather hold a show back a week or two, than battle some live extravaganza put on by the competition.
In the case of Flash, Arrow & Legends of Tomorrow, there are two more breaks planned in the US scheduling between now and the end of the run, and that essentially is the problem for Sky…
If they stick to airing the shows within a week US it makes the UK schedule as erratic as the US. That means Sky have the headache of filling random one hour time slots every few weeks with repeats, or find other ‘one off’ shows to fill the gaps. This also causing complaints (i.e. why’s Flash not on this week?!) It’s far easier for them to squash all the breaks out at the start. That means we have to guess if it’s going to be a new episode or a repeat each week, and also gives Sky a clear block of 6 or 8 weeks when they can slot in an uninterrupted run of something else.
As we go through this run of Flash (1st March), Arrow (2nd March) & Legends of Tomorrow (3rd March), we will catch up with the US air dates as they take breaks. We’re just getting all the gaps in a block at the start rather than mixed throughout the run. I know that means avoiding spoilers, but that’s not impossible to do if you’re careful. Remember your training, and listen to Yoda… 😉
Dave has over 20 years experience in the digital industry, and is founder and editor of Geektown. Obviously a huge geek himself, he can often be found in front of the latest tv show or movie, on various video games, or with his head in a comic book.
how about the US just stop being dicks and thinking that shit should always revolves around them the rest of the world doesn’t care if they think some pussy Version aus rugby is going to be on or not that’s why you have sports channels show the people they won’t watch that shit can
6 weeks isn’t too bad, I suppose, but long enough (and stupid enough) that they don’t get to cry about piracy.
If they want to have that right, then they should stop doing stupid stuff.
Also, wasn’t a season of The Shield aired about 2 years after the US, then we got 2 seasons almost back-to-back?
Four Yorkshire men mode on.
Two months wait. Luxury! When I were a lad, all three seasons of Star Trek had been shown on American TV before any episode was shown in the UK.
Would MUCH prefer to wait rather than it being on then off then on…that winds me up more than having to wait. It’s not like there is nothing else on! It’s only been the past few years where they have shown episodes a week or so after the US. So it’s nothing new!!! In fact I would prefer to wait and have them show the entire series without a break. They have nothing to ‘defend’!
We’ve got the most annoying break at the moment on Big Bang Theory – the big episode has been held over since before Christmas, even though it has been shown in the US and the detail of the episode is all over the show FB page. Oh and the episode in question was specifically written to be watched the week that Star Wars came out! No reason for holding that over in the UK that I can see, except just to be a pain!
Ahh well yes. That’s E4 though so slightly different rules apply. Some of their scheduling, particularly for Big Bang seems to involve the schedulers painting a large calendar on the wall, drinking 2 bottles of whiskey each, then throwing darts at the wall to pick a date. 😉
I think that although it is annoying especially with the amount of spoilers than can be posted., it is beneficial for us in the long run. We already had a break when it was thanksgiving in America and having another few breaks would be more annoying when the storyline is developed even further. It’s more annoying with shows like Suoernatural that are a full season behind so all in all I would rather wait 6 or 8 weeks than a whole year to watch these shows.
That’s very true. You can stay away from spoilers if you try, and i’d rather have it without the breaks. Supernatural is a whole other ball game though (also Person of Interest). I’m assuming E4 manage to buy it for substantially less if they’re airing it so much later. That’s the only reason I can think of… Or they’re all drunk. Which would explain a lot about some of the E4 scheduling. 😉