Do you have a favorite time zone?

It’s always the one with me as occupant.

I’m quite fond of local time but not so slavishly enamoured that I’d set my watch by it.

Yes, Pacific. It’s the only timezone I know.

How was the CT better? I don’t really understand what you mean. Seems like they’re all pretty much the same once you’re used it (with the exception of, say, China, which includes its entire nation in the same timezone so you have the sun setting at midnight in some places).

I like it better primarily because of the TV shows, although with DVR now I guess it doesn’t really matter, but for whatever reason it still does matter.

Eastern, it just seems normal.

When I go to California for business, I feel that everything important happened three hours earlier and I am just getting the warmed-over dregs.

Central Time. You get to see Saturday Night Live as it airs live and it’s an hour earlier than Eastern Time so you don’t have to stay up too late.

As a television fan I feel CT is best because shows start an hour earlier. If something is scheduled for 10pm Eastern we get it at 9pm. Local news is at 10 pm in the evening instead of 11pm.

Football games start at noon, then 3pm on Sundays. If you are in the Pacific Zone games start at 10am. I’m usually still sleeping at that time.

Ok…back in the days when we had only 3 channels, and everybody in America was watching the same thing (The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, for example…) Did The Tonight Show come on at 10:30 p.m. all over? Or 10:30 in Kansas but 8:30 in the Pacific NW, and 12:30 in Florida?

10:30 for CT. 11:30 for everyone else.

The three major networks have their prime time programming between 8–11pm. This is for Pacific, Mountain and Eastern. Central time is 7–10pm. Eastern and Central will view the shows at the same time as each other. You could be in Kansas watching American Idol and chat with friends in New York while watching the same show. Mountain and Pacific need to wait until it’s 8 pm their time to start viewing prime time.

This is why they get upset with us CT and ET peeps because we can spoil shows for them online before they get to view it. This makes us superior. :D

@Stache…if you are on Central Time Zone, as we are in Kansas, then people to the east are 1 or 2 hours ahead of us. People to the west are 1 or 2 hours behind us.

@Stache Yeah, there’s no denying that we in the Pacific are late to the party on everything :P

I can remember it because it’s the ONLY time Seattle is behind Winfield, Kansas.

@Dutchess Right. Kansas is CT. Eastern is one hour ahead of you. Mountain is one hour behind you and Pacific is two hours behind you. I know how this works. You are confused about when television airs and I’m trying to explain this to you. People in California don’t watch American Idol at 5pm. It airs at 8 pm their time. They don’t watch it the same time that Eastern Time does, as in when Eastern is watching at 8pm, Pacific Time isn’t watching at 5pm. They wait until 8pm their time, long after Eastern has watched the show. They need to wait. Get it? The only two time zones that watch shows at the same time is Central and Eastern. That’s why networks broadcast 8pm ET/ 7pm CT.

Central

@Dutchess_III Kansas is central time zone, so the east coast is one hour ahead. When it’s 10 in Kansas, it’s 11 in Florida. There are 4 time zones in the contiguous 48, Pacific, Mountain, Central, and Eastern in that order west to east. If it’s 7:00 in PT, it’s 8:00MT, 9:00CT, and 10ET. Most live shows are live simultaneously in CT and ET, and replayed at an appropriate hour in MT, and PT. Exception can be a sports game or presidential address, where it might be shown live in all time zones, there are exceptions.

As said above, 11:00pm TV shows in ET, are shown at 10:00pm CT. So all those really good TV shows we stayed up late for in NY, and didn’t get to go to sleep until midnight, the people in Chicago only had to wait until 10:00 for the show to start, and got to bed at a decent hour. Also, in CT I can watch The View at 10:am, and get out of the house before noon, but back east i have to wait for it to start at 11:00am, and then half the day is over.

The Tonight Show moved from NY to California during Johnny Carson’s tenure, not that it matters, and with Johnny it was live at 10:30 CT and 11:30 ET, and replayed for MT and PT. So, FL is 11:30pm in this instance.

Most prime time shows in Seattle are shown at the same hour as ET at Seattle local time. So, an 8:00pm ET show (the beginning of prime time in Florida) is shown at 8:00 PM Seattle time. Day time shows can vary more, because of the content of the show. For instance, The View is shown at 10amCT, 11amET (live) and replayed in Seattle I think a totally different time in the afternoon.

Prime time and late night TV were following rules because of content. Meaning, what was appropriate for children to watch.

Universal Coordinated Time.

Really, I can’t say I’ve ever given times zones enough thought to have a “favorite”. I live where I live and that’s what I set my watch by. That’s as far as it goes for me.