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Broadcast programming is the practice of scheduling Broadcasting media shows, typically radio and television, in a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or season-long schedule.
Modern broadcasters use broadcast automation to regularly change the scheduling of their shows to build an audience for a new show, retain that audience, or compete with other broadcasters' shows. Most broadcast are presented weekly in prime time or daily in other dayparting, though there are many exceptions.
At a micro level, scheduling is the minute planning of the transmission; what to broadcast and when, ensuring an adequate or maximum utilization of airtime. Television scheduling strategies are employed to give shows the best possible chance of attracting and retaining an audience. They are used to deliver shows to audiences when they are most likely to want to watch them and deliver audiences to advertisers in the composition that makes their advertising most likely to be effective.Eastman, S.T., and Ferguson, D.A. (2013). Media programming: Strategies and Practices (9th ed.), Boston: Thomson Wadsworth.
With the growth of digital platforms and services allowing Non-linear media, on-demand access to television content, this approach to broadcasting has since been referred to using the retronym linear (such as linear television and linear channels).
In some cases, a lead-in may be an episode of a series that has a tie-in or relevance to the lead-out. In May 2025, the BBC scheduled the Doctor Who episode "The Interstellar Song Contest"—which is themed after the Eurovision Song Contest—as a lead-in to its live broadcast of the 2025 edition. The episode was, in turn, a lead-out for the 2025 FA Cup final; the hammocking of the episode between two live events proved to be risky for the BBC, with Doctor Who showrunner Russell T Davies expressing concern that the episode could have been preempted if the FA Cup match went to extra time. However, this did not prove to be the case, and the episode was the third-highest rated program of the night, behind only the FA Cup and Eurovision themselves.
Lead-outs can sometimes help to launch new programs and talent; in 1982, NBC premiered Late Night with David Letterman as a lead-out for its long-running late-night talk show The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Characterized by an off-beat style appealing to young adults, Late Night helped launch the career of host David Letterman, and influence later entries into the genre. Despite Carson's endorsement of Letterman as a successor following his 1992 retirement, NBC chose Jay Leno instead, and Letterman departed for CBS to host a spiritual successor— Late Show with David Letterman—beginning in the 1993–94 season. Late Night would continue as a franchise with hosts such as Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Fallon—both of whom would later go on to host The Tonight Show.Bushkin, Henry. How Johnny Carson Nearly Quit 'Tonight' and Scored TV's Richest Deal Ever. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 4, 2014. In 2005, the first season of The Ultimate Fighter—a reality competition series following mixed martial arts fighters competing for a contract in the UFC—aired on Spike TV as a lead-out to the professional wrestling series WWE Raw; the program pulled 36% higher viewership than Spike's prior programming in the post- Raw timeslot, and retained 57% of the Raw audience among young adult males.
In the 1993–94 season, Fox scheduled The X-Files as a lead-out for its sci-fi western The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., with the expectation that Brisco County Jr. would serve as the anchor of its Friday-night lineup. However, The X-Files proved to be significantly more successful, and would eventually run for nine seasons. By contrast, viewership for Brisco County Jr. declined throughout the season, and the show was cancelled. Fox attempted to use other sci-fi shows as a lead-in for The X-Files (such as Sliders and VR.5), but they were similarly unsuccessful.
A weak lead-in can have an impact on the viewership of programs that follow; NBC's 2009 attempt to strip the talk show The Jay Leno Show (a spiritual successor to Leno's tenure of The Tonight Show after Conan O'Brien succeeded him) in a 10:00 p.m. ET/PT timeslot proved detrimental to the viewership of late local newscasts on its affiliates.Pergament, Alan (November 17, 2009). The Leno Effect sweeping channel 2 at 11 . The Buffalo News. Retrieved 2009-11-17. NBC subsequently announced plans to shorten The Jay Leno Show to a half hour and move it to 11:35 p.m. ET/PT in late-February 2010, displacing The Tonight Show from its traditional timeslot. This proposal led to a public conflict between O'Brien and NBC, and ultimately resulted in his departure from the network, and the reinstatement of Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show.
A type of lead-out popularized by some series is an aftershow—a supplemental talk show devoted to the preceding program. They usually feature discussion and analysis of its most recent episode, interviews with cast members and celebrity fans of the series, behind-the-scenes features, as well as audience and viewer interactivity. These formats were employed by networks such as AMC (which aired series such as Talking Dead for The Walking Dead), where they served as a cost-effective lead-out that could retain viewers and appeal to Fandom of a popular series.
A bridge was used by ABC between Roseanne and the December 1992 series premiere of The Jackie Thomas Show, a new sitcom co-created by Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold of Roseanne fame. A scene of the Connor family watching its opening on TV seamlessly transitioned into the program itself, with no junction in between. ABC commissioned a minute-by-minute Nielsen ratings report, which showed that the majority of viewers from Roseanne had been retained during the premiere.Carter, Bill. "ABC's Extra Careful Look At 'Jackie Thomas Show'." The New York Times, 1992-12-07, p. D8.Carter, Bill. "As Cliff and Norm Drink Up, In Walks Seinfeld." The New York Times, 1993-03-21, p. A31. In June 2007, CBS scheduled a prime time encore of the season finale of The Price is Right—the final episode hosted by long-time emcee Bob Barker—as a lead-in to its telecast of the 34th Daytime Emmy Awards (where Barker and Price respectively won the awards for Outstanding Game Show Host and Outstanding Game Show), with an additional bridge scene featuring Barker.
Owing to both programs' news comedy formats, the Comedy Central program The Daily Show used newscast-style toss segments to promote its new spin-off and lead-out, The Colbert Report, in which host Jon Stewart would engage in a comedic conversation with the latter's host, Stephen Colbert, via split-screen. On the December 18, 2014 episode of The Daily Show, this segment was used to seamlessly segue into the series finale of The Colbert Report. At its conclusion, the show transitioned back to Stewart (giving the impression that the entire Colbert Report episode was merely a segment of The Daily Show), who concluded his show with its traditional closing segment "Your Moment of Zen" (which featured an outtake from a previous toss segment) as normal.
In some cases, a channel may intentionally allow a program to overrun into the next half-hour timeslot rather than end exactly on the half-hour, in order to discourage viewers from channel surfing at traditional junction periods (since they had missed the beginnings of programs on other channels already). This can, however, cause disruptions with recorders if they are not aware of the scheduling (typically, digital video recorders can be configured to automatically record for a set length of time before and after a schedule's given timeslot in program guide data to account for possible variances). For a period, TBS intentionally scheduled all of its programs at 5 and 35 minutes past the hour rather than exactly on the half hour (a practice it marketed as "Turner Time"), to attract viewers tuning away from other channels.
Programs can also be counterprogrammed by a direct competitor in the same time slot, often resulting in the two programs attempting to attract viewers away from each other through and other tactics. These tactics have most notably been seen in counterprogramming efforts surrounding professional wrestling: WWE was known for its conflicts with the rival Jim Crockett Promotions, and the latter's corporate successor World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in the 1980s and 1990s (such as the Monday Night Wars between WWE Raw and WCW Monday Nitro), and has since engaged in similar conflicts in the 2020s with the upstart All Elite Wrestling (such as the Wednesday Night Wars between AEW Dynamite and WWE NXT, as well as patterns of WWE deliberately scheduling supercards and specials on the same day as major AEW pay-per-views).
In some cases, broadcasters may attempt to adjust their schedules in order to avert attempts at counterprogramming, such as getting a slightly earlier time slot (in the hope that once viewers have become committed to a show they will not switch channels), scheduling the competing program on a different night, or moving it to a different portion of the television season to avoid competition altogether.
Syndicated reruns of network programs that originally aired on a weekly basis are often aired as strips. Shows that are syndicated in this way generally have to have run for several seasons (the rule of thumb is usually 100 episodes) in order to have enough episodes to run without significant Rerun.
Marathons are often aired on holidays (such as Syfy's annual The Twilight Zone marathon on New Year's Day, and Game Show Network airing a "Y2Play" marathon of game show Series finale on New Year's Eve in 1999, hosted by comedian and recurring Match Game panelist Charles Nelson Reilly), as counterprogramming for major events airing on other channels, to lead into new episodes of a series, or to commemorate milestones/events surrounding a specific series or franchise (such as an anniversary, or the network's acquisition of rights to broadcast a certain series or franchise). Some marathons may focus on the roles of a specific entertainer; the death of Betty White resulted in several networks scheduling marathons of programming on or around January 17, 2022—which would have been White's 100th birthday—featuring her television appearances, such as Hallmark Channel airing a marathon of The Golden Girls, and both Buzzr and Game Show Network airing marathons of her game show appearances
While longer marathons are typically reserved for major events, the popularization of binge-watching via streaming services in the 2010s led to many U.S. cable networks adopting marathon-like blocks of programs as their regular schedule. To compete with streaming services such as Netflix releasing entire seasons of programs at once rather than releasing them on a week-to-week basis, TBS premiered seasons of its police sitcom Angie Tribeca in a marathon format. Similarly, free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) services often feature linear channels that are narrowly focused towards specific programs or franchises.
The U.S. basic cable networks Freeform (25 Days of Christmas, 31 Days of Halloween) and Hallmark Channel are known for broadcasting long-term holiday programming events. After experiencing success with its Countdown to Christmas event, Hallmark Channel adopted a practice of dividing its programming into similarly branded "seasons" year-round, which are accompanied by thematically appropriate original series and television films. This strategy was part of an effort to position the channel as "a year-round destination for celebrations", and is synergistic with Hallmark Cards' core greeting card and collectibles businesses.
Turner Classic Movies similarly airs multiple themed programming events throughout the year, including the "Star of the Month" and "Summer Under the Stars"—which both showcase the roles of a specific actor, and "31 Days of Oscar"—an event held prior to the Academy Awards that features notable winners and nominees.
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