Prime time

Europe

Austria

In Austria, prime time usually starts at 20:15 after the news broadcast of ORF 1. Even though ORF2 has its news from 19:30 to 20:00, they also start broadcasting prime time content at 20:15. The same applies for nearly all channels seated in Austria or Germany that are broadcast in Austria.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, prime time starts at 20:00 and finishes at 22:00. It is preceded by a daily newscast (Dnevnik) at 19:00 and followed by a late night newscast (Vijesti) at 22:00.

Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, prime time starts at 20:00 every day (including weekends). Usually, the programmes aired are Bulgarian or Turkish series and reality shows, followed by a late newscast. The Bulgarian National Television broadcasts Po Sveta i u Nas at 20:00 and shows cultural and political programmes from 21:00 to 22:00, with series and late-night news following at 23:00.

Croatia

In Croatia, prime time starts between 20:00 and 20:15. Croatian public broadcaster Hrvatska radiotelevizija broadcasts a daily newscast from 19:00 to 20:00. Also, many private broadcasters have daily newscasts either before or after the HTY newscast, at around 20.05, followed by the start of their own prime time. Many broadcasters without daily newscasts start their prime time at 20:00. Prime time generally ends between 22:00 and 23:00, followed by the late night edition of the network newscast and adult-oriented programming.

Denmark

In Denmark, prime time starts at 20:00.

Finland

In Finland, prime time starts at 21:00. It is preceded by a daily newscast at 20:30.

France

In France prime time starts at 21:10 (20:35 in the 1980s, 20:50 in the 1990s and 2000s, 21:05 in the 2010s).

Georgia

In Georgia, prime time starts between 18:45 and 20:00 and generally ends at midnight. However, on Friday night / Saturday morning, prime time usually continues until 1:00.

Germany

At 20:00 each evening, Das Erste (The First), Germany's oldest public television network, airs the country's most-watched news broadcast, the main edition of the Tagesschau, which is also simulcast on most of its other specialist and regional channels (The Third). The conclusion of the bulletin 15 minutes later marks the beginning of prime time, as it has since the 1950s. In consequence, most other channels—public and private alike—also choose to start their prime time at 20:15. In the 1990s, the commercial channel Sat.1 suffered a significant loss of audience share when it tried moving the start of its prime time to 20:00.

Greece

In Greece, prime time runs from 21:00 (usually following the news) to midnight.

Hungary

In Hungary, prime time on weekdays on the two big commercial stations (RTL and TV2) starts at 19:00 with game shows, tabloid, and docu-reality programmes. At 21:00, two popular soap operas air: Barátok közt and Jóban Rosszban, which follows at 21:30. American and other series, movies, talk-shows, and magazines run until 23:30. The prime-time lineup is preceded by daily news programmes at 18:30. At weekends, prime time begins at 19:00, with blockbuster movies and television shows.

Before 15 March 2015, the public television station M1 began its prime time with a game show at 18:30, which was followed by the daily news programme Híradó at 19:30. After the news, the channel broadcast American and other series, talk shows, magazines, and news programmes until 22:00, after which came the daily news magazine Este and the late edition of Híradó.

From 15 March 2015, Duna began broadcasting all of the entertainment programming transferred to it from that date from M1, meaning that prime time on Duna now begins at 18:00, starting with the simulcast of the 18:00 edition of Híradó from the newly re-launched news channel, M1.

Iceland

In Iceland, prime time starts at 19:30. It is preceded by a daily newscast at 19:00.

Ireland

In Ireland, prime starts at 18:30 and ends at 22:00.

Italy

In Italy, prime time (called "prima serata") starts between 21:00 and 21:45 (main channels, including Rai TV) and ends between 23:30 and 00:55. On Friday and Saturday night, some shows last until 01:00–01:30. It usually follows news and, on some networks (like Rai 1 and Canale 5), a slot called "access prime time". Shows, movies and fiction are usually shown during prime time although sporting events, Festival di Sanremo, Eurovision Song Contest and special programs usually start between 20:45 and 21:00 and partially cover both time slots.

Netherlands

Much like in Germany, prime time in the Netherlands usually begins at 20:30 in order to not compete with Nederlanse Omroep Stichting's flagship 20:00 newscast.

Norway

In Norway, prime time starts at 19:45. On the NRK1 channel it is preceded by the daily newscast Dagsrevyen at 19:00. Locally, prime time is called beste sendetid (lit. 'best time for broadcasting').

Poland

In Poland, prime time starts around 20:00 (sometimes 20:30). On TVP1, it is preceded by a daily newscast at 19:30. On TVN, the newscast is aired at 19:00, followed by the newsmagazine Uwaga at 19:50 (weekdays) or 19:45 (weekends), and then the soap opera Na Wspólnej at 20:05 (Monday to Thursday) or 20:00 (Friday to Sunday), various movies on Fridays, serials or films (winter and summer) on Saturdays, and programmes or films (winter and summer) on Sundays. On Polsat, the news is aired at 18:50, followed by Gość Wydarzeń talk-show at 19:15, sports news and weather forecast.

Portugal

Much like in Spain, prime time in Portugal usually begins later at 21:30 and ends at 0:00 in order to not compete with Rádio e Televisão de Portugal's flagship 20:00 newscast. Similarly, Portugal also has a second prime time, running from 13:30–16:00 which coincides with the extended Portuguese lunch break.

Russia

In Russia television prime time is between 19:00 and 23:00 on working days and from 15:00 to 01:00 on holidays. On radio stations there are morning, day and evening prime times. The most common division: morning—6:30 to 10:00; day—~12:00 to 14:00; evening—16:00 to 21:00.

Slovakia

Public television in Slovakia consists of two channels; on the main channel (Jednotka) prime time starts at 20:10, and on the second one (Dvojka) prime-time programming starts at 20:00. The two biggest private broadcasters set the start of prime-time programming at 20:20 (Markíza) and 20:30 (TV JOJ). Generally, however, prime time is considered to be from 20:00 to 23:00.

Slovenia

In Slovenia, prime time, the period in which the most-watched shows are broadcast, is from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm. It is preceded by daily newscasts; Dnevnik RTV SLO (7:00 pm – 8:00 pm) on TV SLO 1, 24ur (6:55 pm – 8:00 pm) on POP TV, Svet na Kanalu A (6:00 pm – 7:00 pm; 7:50 pm–8:0pm), and Danes (7:30 pm – 8:00 pm) on Planet TV.

Spain

In Spain, prime time refers to the time period in which the most-watched shows are broadcast. Prime time in Spain starts quite late when compared to most nations as it runs from 22:30 till 01:00. Most news programmes in Spain air at 21:00 for an hour and prime time follows. However, due to fierce competition, especially among the private stations prime time has even been delayed until 23:00. Most channels are delaying prime time in order to protect their top shows from sporting events.

In the 1990s, prime time in Spain began at 21:00, moving to 21:30 in the latter half of the 1990s and 22:00 in the early 2000s. Commercial broadcaster LaSexta and the second channel from the Public broadcasting La 2 have attempted to shift prime time back to 21:30 in 2006 and Spring 2007, but these attempts have been unsuccessful. Fellow public channel La 1 also tried to pull prime time back to 21:00 in early 2015, to no avail.

The lateness in the start of prime time in Spain is also due to Spanish culture. Spanish people generally work from 09:00–14:00 and then from 17:00–20:00 as opposed to the 09:00–17:00 which is common in other countries. The popular late-night show Crónicas marcianas during the late 1990s–2000 also helped to extend prime time well into the early hours with the show being watched by a share of 40%, despite finishing at 02:00.

Spain might also be unique in that it has a second prime time, running from 14:30–17:00 which coincides with the extended Spanish lunch break. Shows airing in the secondary prime time period on many occasions beat those prime-time shows at night on a daily basis. The second prime time occurs only on weekdays, though and the slot is usually filled with The Simpsons, news, soap operas and talk shows.

Sweden

In Sweden, prime time starts at 20:00. It is preceded by a daily newscast at 19:30 and local news at 19:50.

Ukraine

In Ukraine, prime time (Ukrainian: прайм-тайм, найкращий час) runs from 18:30 to 21:30 on working days and from 15:00 to 01:00 on holidays.

United Kingdom

In the UK, prime time (also known as peak time) runs from 19:00 to 23:00.

North America

In North America, television networks feed their prime-time programming in two blocks: one for the Eastern and Central time zones, and the other, on a three-hour tape delay, for the Pacific Time Zone, to their local network affiliates. In Atlantic Canada (including Newfoundland and Labrador), as well as Alaska and Hawaii, there is no change in the interpretation or usage of "prime time", as the concept is not attached to time zones in any way. Affiliates in the Mountain, Alaskan, and Hawaiian zones are either on their own to delay broadcast by an hour or two, or collectively form a small, regional network feed with others in the same time zone.

Prime time is commonly defined as 8:00–11:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific and 7:00–10:00 p.m. Central/Mountain on Monday through Saturday. On Sundays, the five major broadcast television networks traditionally begin their primetime programming one hour early at 7:00 p.m. (Eastern/Pacific, 6:00 p.m. Central/Mountain), and still air through 11:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific /10:00 p.m. Central. Some networks, such as Fox and The CW only broadcast a time period from 7:00–10:00 p.m. on Sundays and 8:00–10:00 p.m. on other days, a time period known as "Common Prime".

MyNetworkTV takes it a step further and broadcast only from 8:00–10:00 p.m. and only on weekdays (due to it not being a TV network and instead as a programming service, forming its programming like a TV block).

The CW returned to Sunday broadcasting in 2019, followed by the addition of Saturday in 2021 and then the Sunday prime access hour in 2023. In Canada, CTV and Global both follow the same model as the larger American networks (although both may occasionally air programming in the 7:00 p.m. hour in the event of scheduling conflicts with other U.S. imports), while CBC Television, Citytv, and CTV 2 schedule prime-time programs only within the common prime period (with the 10:00 p.m. hour dedicated to syndicated programming on Citytv and CTV 2, and CBC airing its news program The National). The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has alternatively defined prime time as ranging from 6 pm to 11 pm to 7 pm to 11 pm.

Since the early 2000s, the major networks have come to consider Saturday prime time as a graveyard slot and have largely abandoned scheduling of new scripted programming on that night. The major networks still maintain a prime-time programming schedule on Saturdays, with a mix of live sporting events (most commonly college football in the United States and ice hockey in Canada), encores of programs aired earlier in the week, films, non-scripted reality programs, true crime programs produced by their news divisions, and, occasionally, burning off episodes of low-rated or cancelled series.

Prime time can be extended or truncated if coverage of sporting events run past their allotted end time. Since the "Heidi Game" incident in 1968, in which NBC cut away from coverage of a New York Jets/Oakland Raiders football game on the east coast in order to show a movie (and, in the process, causing viewers to miss an unexpected comeback by the Raiders to win the game), the present-day National Football League (NFL) mandates that all games be broadcast in their entirety in the markets of the teams involved. Due to this rule, game telecasts may sometimes overrun into the 7:00 p.m. ET hour. Fox previously scheduled repeats of its animated series in the 7:00 hour, allowing themselves to simply pre-empt the reruns if a game ran long. This was later replaced by a half-hour-long wrap-up show, The OT. In contrast, CBS does not, as its weekly newsmagazine 60 Minutes has traditionally aired as close to 7:00 p.m. ET as possible. Even if a game runs past that hour, CBS shows 60 Minutes in its entirety after the conclusion of coverage, and the rest of the prime-time schedule on the East Coast is shifted to compensate. For example, if game coverage were to end at 7:30 p.m., prime time would end at 11:30 p.m.

However, in the rare case where the NFL game runs excessively late (8 p.m. or later), the series scheduled to air at 10 p.m. is preempted, with the West Coast and eastern markets airing only an early afternoon game usually receiving a repeat of the 10 p.m. series instead. In an extreme case, CBS's prime time can be extended past midnight during broadcasts of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. This does not necessarily apply universally; in 2001, after an XFL game went into double overtime, causing a 45-minute delay of a highly promoted episode of Saturday Night Live, NBC made a decision to cut off all future XFL broadcasts at 11:00 p.m. ET. Since the launch of NBCSN, NBC has occasionally invoked this curfew by moving sports overruns to that channel if necessary.

Until the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulated time slots prior to prime time with the now-defunct Prime Time Access Rule in the 1971–1972 season, networks began programming at 7:30 p.m. Eastern and Pacific/6:30 p.m. Central and Mountain on weeknights. The change helped instigate what is colloquially known as the "rural purge"—a long-term trend away from programs appealing to older and rural audiences in favor of programs catering towards younger, "urban" viewers. As a result, the prime access hour became a lucrative timeslot for syndicated programming in the years that followed, with game shows and variety shows, as well as syndicated reruns, becoming popular.

The vast majority of prime-time programming in English-speaking North America comes from the United States, with only a limited amount produced in Canada. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission mandates quotas for Canadian content in prime time; these quotas indicate at least half of Canadian prime-time programs must be Canadian in origin, but the majority of this is served by national and local news or localized entertainment gossip shows such as Global Television Network's Entertainment Tonight Canada and CTV Television Network's ETalk.

Likewise, the vast majority of Spanish-language programming in North America comes from Mexico. Televisa, a Mexican network, provides the majority of programming to the dominant American-based Spanish broadcaster, Univision. Univision does produce a fairly large amount of unscripted Spanish-language programming, the best-known having been the long-running variety show Sábado Gigante, hosted and created by Chilean national Don Francisco, until September 2015. Today, Univision is televising Liga MX soccer matches on Saturdays. Univision's distant second-place competitor, Telemundo, produces a much greater share of in-house content, including a long line of telenovelas.

In Quebec, the largest Francophone area of North America, French-language programming consists of originally produced programs (most of which are produced in Montreal, with a few produced in Quebec City) and a few French-language dubs of English language programs. On all of the Quebec networks, entertainment programming is scheduled only between 8 and 10 p.m., with the 10–11 p.m. hour given over to a network newscast or a nightly talk show.

United States

Prime time is the daypart (a block of a day's programming schedule) with the most viewers and is generally where television networks and local stations reap much of their advertising revenues. In recent years, television advertising expenditure in the US has been highest during prime-time drama shows.

The Nielsen ratings system is explicitly designed for the optimum measurement of audience viewership by dayparts, with prime time being of most interest. Television viewership is, in general, highest on weekday evenings, as most Americans are at work during daytime, asleep during the overnights, and out taking part in social events on weekends; thus, television has its highest audience at times when people are unlikely to be away from home.

Prime time for radio is called drive time and, in Eastern and Pacific Time, is 6–10 a.m. and 3–7 p.m. and, for Mountain and Central Time, is 5–9 a.m. and 2–6 p.m. The difference between peak radio listenership and television viewership times is due to the fact that people listen to their radios most often while driving to and from work (hence the name "drive time").

A survey by Nielsen revealed that viewers watched almost two hours' worth of TV during prime time.

Mexico

In Mexico, central time normally starts at 7:30 p.m. and periodically ends at 10:30 p.m. The main networks, such as Las Estrellas, Azteca Uno, and Imagen Televisión, broadcast telenovelas produced by themselves or productions acquired from other countries such as Turkey and Brazil, among others.

South America

In many Latin American countries, prime time (known in most countries as horario central or "Central Time", horario estelar ("Stellar Time") or horário nobre ("noble time") in Brazil) is considered to be from Monday to Friday from 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. The time slot is usually used for news, telenovelas and television shows, and special time slots are used for reality television, with great popularity, especially in Mexico and Brazil. In Brazil, the three most famous telenovelas in the country are shown each weekday and on Saturdays on prime time. There are also news programs, reality shows, and sitcoms.

Argentina

In Argentina, prime time is considered to be from 8:00 p.m. until 12:00 a.m., including the most successful series and telenovelas in the country (such as Los Roldán and Valientes) and entertainment shows, like CQC (Caiga Quien Caiga) or Showmatch (Showmatch).

Chile

In Chile, prime time is considered to be from 10:30 p.m. until 1:00 a.m., including the most successful series and telenovelas in the country (such as Socias and Las Vega's). Investigation entertainment shows (like Informe Especial, Contacto, and Apuesto por ti) also air.

Colombia

In Colombia, prime time occurs between 20:00 and 23:00. Usually, programmes during prime time are newscasts, Soap dramas, TV Series, TV Shows, Reality Shows, and entertainment shows.

Paraguay

In Paraguay, prime time occurs between 19:00 and 23:00. Usually, programmes during prime time are newscasts and entertainment shows.

Oceania

Australia

Prime time in Australia is officially from 6:00 p.m. to midnight, following Australian Eastern Standard Time, with the highest ratings normally achieved between 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.

New Zealand

Traditionally, prime time in New Zealand is considered to be 7:30 pm to 10:30 pm, but it can be extended to cover the entire evening of television (5:00 pm to 11:00 pm).