I'm going to bitch again about the problems that network scheduling creates for those of us who record TV shows via TiVo. (This also applies, though not as severely, to folks who employ one of those primitive, Paleolithic-era "video cassette recorders.") How long is The Tonight Show with Jay Leno? No, it's not an hour. TiVo says it's 1 hour and 2 minutes long. It runs from 11:35 PM to 12:37 AM. How long is Late Night With Conan O'Brien? Says TiVo, it's 59 minutes. It airs from 12:37 AM to 1:36 AM.
Now, even these numbers are about fifteen seconds off but let's ignore that. When I record both shows via TiVo's automatic selection, all is right with the world…that is, as long as I don't wish to record a show on another station that starts at 1:30 AM or even 1:35. I wish to do this tonight so what I had to do was to cancel my one-touch recording for Conan, then do a manual recording from 12:40 to 1:30, with the "start" time padded by three minutes. I'll lose the last six minutes of the show, but that's unavoidable and acceptable, since it'll just be commercials and thanking Bruce Springsteen. Still, in a world where most video recorders work in five minute increments, why can't TV be programmed that way?
Even better would be if everything started on the half-hour but I guess the local stations will never give up the extra minutes of ad revenue they score by having the late night shows start at 11:35. Years ago, I heard an NBC exec say he was going to push to have The Tonight Show run from 11:35 to 12:45, followed by Late Night from 12:45 to 2:00 AM, with Later and other programming to follow on the half-hour. I'd be curious to know if that was ever seriously discussed.