Late night television is one of the
dayparts in television
broadcast programming
Broadcast programming is the practice of organizing or ordering (scheduling) of broadcast media shows, typically radio and television, in a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or season-long schedule.
Modern broadcasters use broadcast automation ...
. It follows
prime time and precedes the overnight
television show
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed bet ...
graveyard slot. The slot generally runs from about 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m.
ET, with variations according to the time zone and broadcaster.
In the United States and Canada, the term is synonymous with the
late-night talk show, a type of
television comedy talk show and
variety show
Variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is entertainment made up of a variety of acts including musical performances, sketch comedy, magic, acrobatics, juggling, and ventriloquism. It is normally introduced by a comp� ...
. Thus, the late night programming block is considered more important in North America. On most major-network stations, a
late-night news
Late-night news (sometimes referred to as "late local news") refers to late evening television news programs that are broadcast on a nightly or weeknightly basis, often focusing on local news stories and including other feature content.
Overview
...
airs at the beginning of the block.
Due to the complications of
effects of time zones on North American broadcasting, live professional sporting matches such as
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
,
hockey
Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...
, and
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
played in
Pacific and
Mountain Time Zone cities, such as
Denver,
Los Angeles,
Phoenix,
Portland, and
Seattle, are often played in the primetime of the Pacific and Mountain Time Zones, but late night in the
Central
Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object.
Central may also refer to:
Directions and generalised locations
* Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known a ...
and
Eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
* Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
* Eastern Air ...
time zones, and their lateness often contributes to a perceived
East Coast bias East Coast bias is the perceived tendency for sports broadcasting and journalism in the United States to give greater weight and attention to teams and athletes on the East Coast than those on the West Coast. In Canada, a similar bias is perceived ...
in sports media.
In the
United Kingdom, the late night spot is from 11:00 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. and not seen as a priority;
ITV,
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service in ...
and
Channel 5 air repeat programs in the time slot, and the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
's channels (
BBC One,
Two
2 (two) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3. It is the smallest and only even prime number. Because it forms the basis of a duality, it has religious and spiritual significance in many cultu ...
,
Three and
Four
4 (four) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 3 and preceding 5. It is the smallest semiprime and composite number, and is considered unlucky in many East Asian cultures.
In mathematics
Four is the smallest ...
) primarily show
BBC News, air movies, or repeats. Similarly,
Australian and
New Zealand television primarily air American late shows, lower-priority imported series, late movies or overflows of sports programming in the late night time slot.
On
cable television
Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with broadc ...
, programming strategies in this time slot include
timeshift channel
A timeshift channel (sometimes referred to as a +1 channel) is a television channel carrying time-delayed reruns of its "parent" channel's programming. This channel runs alongside their parent: the term "timeshift" does not refer to a network br ...
of prime time programs and, in the case of
children's television series
Children's television series (or children's television shows) are television programs designed for children, normally scheduled for broadcast during the morning and afternoon when children are awake. They can sometimes run during the early evenin ...
channels,
sign-on and sign-off
A sign-on (or start-up in Commonwealth countries except Canada) is the beginning of operations for a radio station, radio or television station, generally at the start of each day. It is the opposite of a sign-off (or closedown in Commonwealth ...
and allowing more adult-oriented fare for the overnight hours under another brand. Two examples are the children's channels
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, ...
and
Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its networks division's Kids and Family Group. Its ...
, which changes over to
Adult Swim
Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swim'' and often abbreviated as s'') is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programmed by its in-house ...
and
Nick at Nite
Nick at Nite (stylized as nick@nite) is an American nighttime basic cable television channel that broadcasts over the channel space of Nickelodeon. It typically broadcasts Mondays to Thursday nights from 9 p.m. - 6:30 a.m. ET/ PT, Friday nights fr ...
, respectively, at an hour when most pre-adolescent children go to sleep. Adult Swim and Nick at Nite typically airs series programming, such as reruns of
sitcom, that may have coarser language and more adult themes than Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon.
After 11:00 p.m.,
Japan airs adult talk or variety shows as well as
late night anime
In Japan, refers to anime series broadcast on television late at night or in the early hours of the morning, usually between 10 PM and 4 AM local time.
Overview
Late night anime is targeted towards Otaku from teens to adult audiences. One of the ...
. This is also true of the United States-based cable channel
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, ...
, which targets children and young teens during daytime and primetime hours, but changes over to its
Adult Swim
Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swim'' and often abbreviated as s'') is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programmed by its in-house ...
brand in late night slots, which targets young adults with its content.
"Adult Swim/CN Split Cements Strategy"
ICv2. March 3, 2005.
See also
* Late-night news
Late-night news (sometimes referred to as "late local news") refers to late evening television news programs that are broadcast on a nightly or weeknightly basis, often focusing on local news stories and including other feature content.
Overview
...
* Late-night talk show
* Late night television in the United States
In the United States, late night television is the block of television programming intended for broadcast after 11:00 p.m. and usually through 2:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific Time (ET/PT), leading out of prime time; informally, the day ...
* List of late-night American network TV programs
Late night television in the United States is the block of television programming intended for broadcast after 11:00 p.m. and usually through 2:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific Time (ET/PT), but which informally can include programs aired a ...
References
{{Dayparting
Television genres
Television programming
Television terminology