How do you figure out what time a show on tv starts when it says, 10/9 central?

If it says 10/9 central, that means the show is on at 10 eastern time which is the same as 9 central time. 10 eastern would also be 8 mountain time and 7 pacific time, but depending on the station, they might have a different time schedules for the show, so you’d have to check the actual program schedule in those areas.

To get from eastern time to pacific time, you subtract 3 hours.

First number is Eastern, second is central time. I think most times are listed as the first number being Eastern time.

Network TV is re-broadcast 3 hours later on the west coast than on the east coast, so the first given time applies to both Eastern and Pacific time zones. The second figure applies to Central time. For instance, in Chicago (where I grew up) the news comes on at 10 pm, followed by Leno & Letterman at 10:35.

I’m not sure about Mountain time television, but it would be 1 hour earlier than Central for the eastern broadcast or 1 hour later than Pacific for the western broadcast.

It used to be they would air a show at the same time in the Pacific time zone as it aired in the Eastern. If you lived in the Mountain, you pretty much took catch as catch can.

With the advent of cable, I don’t think it is as strictly enforced as it used to be.

Actually, except for live shows like football games, Pacific and Eastern have always been in synch, i.e., if it’s on at 10 in New York, it’ll be on at 10 in San Francisco. Central and Mountain have always been shown an hour earlier than Pacific and Eastern.

An oddity: I spent a night in Elko, Nevada while a car was waiting for a part. The local cable carried NBC from Salt Lake City. Johnny Carson was on at 10:30 in Salt Lake, but Nevada is an hour behind Utah, so it was on at 9:30 in Elko.

That’s kinda the highlight of a night in Elko.

My 7-year-old daughter walked up to me one night and asked
“What are we doing on Friday at 8/7 central?”
I said, “Is there something you want to watch on TV?”
She was amazed, “How did you know?”

The show you want to watch will be on at 10pm your time(for Eastern, Mountain and Pacific time zones), unless you live in the Central Time Zone, then it will be 9pm. We like to feel special here in the Midwest ;)

(anyone living in Eastern and Central Time Zones get to watch SNL live. Everyone else gets the recorded version. We get to see it when someone messes up and says the F word. neener neener)

If it says 10pm, 9 Central, it’s on at 10pm, unless you are in the Central time zone, or if you have an East Coast feed on your satellite dish. Then it would be on at 7pm Pacific.

I think @jonsblond has covered the time zones well.

Obviously, this generally applies to nationally broadcast television programs in the USA (and maybe Canada, but I’m not so sure about Canadian programming practices).