A
timeshift channel is a television channel carrying a time-delayed rebroadcast of its "parent" channel's output. This channel runs alongside their parent: the term "timeshift" does not refer to a network broadcasting at a later time to reflect a local timezone unless the parent is also available. Often the timeshift channel's branding and advertising will be the same as that of the parent, with the channel number and respective timing being the only distinction between the two, but some, such as
Channel 4+1Channel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, will overlay a different
digital on-screen graphicA digital on-screen graphic is a watermark-like station logo that many television broadcasters overlay over a portion of the screen-area of their programs to identify the channel...
to distinguish the two channels.
A
timeshift channel is a television channel carrying a time-delayed rebroadcast of its "parent" channel's output. This channel runs alongside their parent: the term "timeshift" does not refer to a network broadcasting at a later time to reflect a local timezone unless the parent is also available. Often the timeshift channel's branding and advertising will be the same as that of the parent, with the channel number and respective timing being the only distinction between the two, but some, such as
Channel 4+1Channel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, will overlay a different
digital on-screen graphicA digital on-screen graphic is a watermark-like station logo that many television broadcasters overlay over a portion of the screen-area of their programs to identify the channel...
to distinguish the two channels. A few channels, like
Film4+1Film4 is a free digital television channel in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned and operated by Channel 4, that screens films....
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
, do not carry a digital on-screen graphic on its regular channel or its timeshift channel.
United Kingdom and Ireland
In the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
and
IrelandIreland is a country in north-western Europe. The modern sovereign state occupies about five-sixths of the island of Ireland, which was partitioned on 3 May 1921. It is a parliamentary democracy and a republic...
, most timeshift channels have a time delay of one hour, and are thus described as a +1 channel – for instance Living has a timeshift channel known as Living+1. More recently, some channels have launched timeshift channels with a delay of two hours – +2 channels. The most notable of these is
FXFX is a television channel in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned by Fox, launched in 12 January 2004. It was originally branded as FX289 in reference to its Sky Digital EPG number. It was rebranded to FX in May 2005 as the channel began to move places on the Sky EPG.FX targets a...
, though the timeshifted channel is presented as simply FX+, rather than FX+2. UKTV Style had a +2 hour channel but was called UKTV Style 2, it closed in late 2008. Most timeshift channels are available only via
pay TVPay television or premium television refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by both analog and digital cable and satellite, but also increasingly by digital terrestrial methods. Some parts of the world, notably in France and the US, have also offered encrypted analog...
, although
E4+1E4 is a digital television channel in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, launched as a pay-TV companion to Channel 4 on 18 January 2001. The "E" stands for entertainment, and the channel is mainly aimed at the lucrative 15 - 35 age group...
,
ITV2+1ITV2 is a 24 hour, free-to-air entertainment television channel in the United Kingdom owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998, and is available on digital television via satellite, cable, IPTV and terrestrial platforms...
,
Channel 4+1Channel 4 is a UK public-service television broadcaster which began working on November 2, 1982. Although commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station owned now and operated by the Channel Four Television...
, "Dave ja vu" and Virgin1+1 are available via the UK digital terrestrial service, Freeview.
More4+1More4 is a digital television channel, produced by United Kingdom broadcaster Channel 4, that launched on 10 October 2005. It is carried on Freeview, on satellite broadcasters Freesat and Sky Digital, UK IPTV broadcaster Tiscali TV and on UK cable network Virgin Media and in the Republic of...
was also available until the launch of
Film4Film4 is a free digital television channel in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, owned and operated by Channel 4, that screens films....
.
Cartoon Network+1Cartoon Network or CN for short is a television channel available on Sky Digital, Virgin Media, Tiscali TV and UPC Ireland. Distributed by Turner Broadcasting, the channel primarily shows animated programming and was launched on 17 September 1993 in the United Kingdom and Ireland.-History:The...
shut down on March 6, 2006 in the UK. There are currently 50 timeshift channels
in the UK on Sky
Australia
In
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
, timeshift channels typically carry a time delay of two hours, making the time shift channels run on local time in Western Australia. These channels may accordingly be described as +2, such as on
ArenaArena is an Australian general entertainment cable and satellite channel available on Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television's subscription platforms.-History:...
, although the timeshift for
W.W. is an Australian cable and satellite channel available on Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television's subscription platforms.-History:W. began under the name FX in 1998 as a re-launch and re-positioning of the channel. It re-launched as W. in 2003 shortly before Digital broadcasting began. W. has...
is called W2. Only ten timeshift channels currently exist, mostly allocated to entertainment channels.
New Zealand
In
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous smaller islands, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands. The indigenous Māori named New Zealand Aotearoa, commonly translated as The Land of the Long White Cloud...
,
Sky Movies 2SKY Movies is a group of subscription television movie channels in New Zealand operated by SKY Network Television. The original channel, SKY Movies was launched in 1990. A sister channel, SKY Movies 2 was launched towards the end of the 1990s. This was followed by the launch of SKY Movies Greats in...
was launched as a timeshift channel in July 2007. Freeview launched a timeshift channel for
TV3TV3 is a commercial television station in New Zealand broadcasting via terrestrial to almost 100 percent of the country, and on Sky Network Television's and Freeview's satellite platform. It began broadcasting on 26 November 1989, the first privately owned television network in the country...
on March 30, 2009.
United States
In the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, timeshift channels typically carry a time delay of three hours (in line with the time difference between the east and
westThe Pacific Time Zone observes standard time by subtracting eight hours from Coordinated Universal Time . The clock time in this zone is based on the mean solar time of the 120th meridian west of the Greenwich Observatory. During daylight saving time, its time offset is UTC-7.In the United States...
coasts of the US), and are generally called "West" versions (the main channels are generally called "East" versions). For conventional broadcast networks, a timeshift channel is a network affiliate from a market in another
time zoneA time zone is a region of the earth that has uniform standard time, usually referred to as the local time. By convention, time zones compute their local time as an offset from UTC . Local time is UTC plus the current time zone offset for the considered location.-Introduction:Time zones are...
; for cable-only outlets, a timeshift channel is simply the original programming feed retransmitted at a later time, as in the case with timeshift channels in other countries.
The major US terrestrial networks broadcast without delay in the
EasternEastern Standard Time may refer to:*North American Eastern Time Zone, UTC-5*Australian Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10...
and Central timezones (UTC-5 and UTC-6, respectively), but delay programmes by one and three hours respectively for the Mountain (UTC-7) and Pacific (UTC-8) time zones. The start of US evening
prime timePrime time or primetime is the block of programming on television during the middle of the evening.The term prime time is often defined in terms of a fixed time period, for example, from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm...
programmes are typically announced in the form of "8, 7 Central", often written as "8/7c".
Most
cable televisionCable television is a system of providing television to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through fixed optical fibers or coaxial cables as opposed to the over-the-air method used in traditional television broadcasting in which a television antenna is required...
channels do not timeshift, with a few notable exceptions. The most notable network to carry a separate full time-shifted feed is
NickelodeonNickelodeon is an American cable television channel owned by Viacom. Since the mid-1990s and early 2000s Nickelodoen as a brand has expanded into other territories including Europe, the Middle-East, Russia and Asia.It is often referred to by its shortened name, Nick, a practice that dates back to...
, which is targeted to minors and as such schedules its programming around a typical school day and sleep schedule. Two separate Nickelodeon feeds exist, with the second being delayed three hours from the first. (Some digital cable and satellite outlets carry both, with the East Coast feed labeled "Nick 1" and the West Coast feed "Nick 2.")
Cable newsUnited States cable news came to be in the early 1980s with the advent of cable television. Early networks include CNN in 1980, Financial News Network in 1981, and CNN2 in 1982. CNBC was created in 1989, taking control of FNN in 1991...
outlets such as
Fox News ChannelThe Fox News Channel , commonly referred to as Fox or Fox News, is a major American cable news and satellite channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation. As of April 2009, it is available to 102 million households in the U.S...
,
CNNCable News Network, almost always referred to by its initialism CNN, is an U.S. cable news network founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first network to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television network in the United States...
and HLN timeshift most of their prime time programming on their main channel in the overnight hours, so that they will air in prime time in both the Eastern and Pacific time zones.
Sporting events are often broadcast live in all time zones, resulting in announcements such as "4 Eastern, 1 Pacific", generally shown as "4 ET/1 PT". In the event of a sporting event leading into the East Coast prime time, the following programs are often said to be "coming up next, except on the West Coast," as additional programming is shifted around to fill the time between the end of the event and the start of West Coast prime times. Many times, this is the programming which was preempted by the effectively earlier time slot in the western zones.
Canada
In Canada, English-language programming is transmitted without delay in the Atlantic time zone (UTC-4) and delayed in most of the rest of the nation. This results in the effective existence of, for example, +1, +2, +3, and +4 channels of the broadcast networks for satellite television viewers in the Atlantic time zone and -4, -3, -2, and -1 channels for Pacific viewers. French programming is transmitted without delay in
MontrealMontreal is the second-largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. Originally called Ville-Marie , the city takes its present name from Mont-Royal, the triple-peaked hill located in the heart of the city, whose name was also initially given to the island on which the...
's
EasternEastern Standard Time may refer to:*North American Eastern Time Zone, UTC-5*Australian Eastern Standard Time, UTC+10...
zone and delayed only in Western Canada.
Latin America
In Latin America, Spanish-language cable programming is transmitted without delay in Argentina and Uruguay, and delayed in most countries. Portuguese-language programming is transmitted without delay in
Rio de JaneiroRio de Janeiro is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America. The city was the capital of Brazil for nearly two centuries, from 1763 to 1822 during the Portuguese colonial era, and...
and
São PauloSão Paulo is the largest city in Brazil and the world's 7th largest metropolitan area. The city is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous Brazilian state. It is also the richest city in Brazil. The name of the city honors Saint Paul. São Paulo exerts strong regional influence in...
's
official timeUTC-3 is used in the following areas:-As standard time : - East Northern and Northeastern States** Alagoas, Amapá, Bahia, Ceará, Maranhão, Pará, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Piauí, Rio Grande do Norte, Sergipe, Tocantins...
and not delayed in the rest of the nation, except for the major terrestrial broadcast networks, three HBO channels and two
CinemaxCinemax is a collection of premium television networks that provide movies, special features, erotica, and other services to consumers. Cinemax is operated by Home Box Office, Inc....
channels.