9:05 p.m., 9:10 p.m. or even 9:15 p.m.… Prime time programs continue to drop by a few minutes from year to year. Worse, the schedules announced by the channels on TV programs are not even respected and it is not uncommon for some ”prime” only to start after 9:20 p.m.
These delays were denounced last December by the Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel (CSA), which called on the channels to put an end to this delay: 3 minutes and 54 seconds on average during the third week of September 2021. Five channels exceeded even the 5 minute delay while TF1 and TMC showed a 7 minute lag.
5 minutes later
Some channels were therefore asked, in mid-December, to review their schedule. Since last Saturday, the times indicated in the TV programs have been moved back by 5 minutes, thus going to 9:10 p.m. instead of 9:05 p.m. for TF1, France 2 and France 3, and 9:05 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. for CStar and 9 p.m. for France 5 .
The goal? No longer announce a program at such a time if it is impossible for the channels to respect it afterwards. The CSA thus recalled that “the chains are free to compose their schedule as they wish it. However, they must respect […] previously announced times. »
Good intentions but ignored?
The CSA hopes to limit the frustration of viewers with more realistic schedules. A similar provision had been applied in 2019: the channels had already undertaken to communicate timetables more in line with the actual reality of their broadcast, thus going from 9 p.m. to 9:05 p.m. Repeat again with this new schedule that came into effect last Saturday.
The programs have thus been moved back by 10 minutes in three years. Should we expect in a few years a start of prime time at 9:20 p.m.? The time when films started before 9 p.m. seems in any case very far away.