Add optional defailt airtime to web channels

The OP has a point. Sometimes web series are released at the same time every week and that is important information to have. At the very least it can be used to prevent disagreements on the release date when for example series/episode is released at 12am ET. This means 2 different release dates depending on which coast you live on.

I've been thinking about this recently. I proposed an idea a while ago but didn't get any feedback, so let's try it again :)

We could change the policy to state that a Web Channel should only have a country set when they're only available in one single country. For example, Netflix (worldwide) or Hulu (US and Japan) would not have a country, but something like CBS All Access (US only) would have its country set to the US.

Nothing would change for Web Channels without a country, but for Web Channels that have a set country we'd make it possible to add episode airtimes. These episodes would then be displayed in that country's schedule as well.

david wrote:
I've been thinking about this recently. I proposed an idea a while ago but didn't get any feedback, so let's try it again :)

We could change the policy to state that a Web Channel should only have a country set when they're only available in one single country. For example, Netflix (worldwide) or Hulu (US and Japan) would not have a country, but something like CBS All Access (US only) would have its country set to the US.

So let's say Hulu only released something in the US - and not any other country - we couldn't have the airtime as there would be other shows that would be released in multiple countries.

However it would seem like the policy wouldn't be consistently applied to other people looking at it.

gazza911 wrote:
So let's say Hulu only released something in the US - and not any other country - we couldn't have the airtime as there would be other shows that would be released in multiple countries.

However it would seem like the policy wouldn't be consistently applied to other people looking at it.

Indeed, this would just be an improvement for Web Channels that exclusively operate in a single country. Improving how Netflix shows are handled would be a different beast entirely.

gazza911 wrote:
So let's say Hulu only released something in the US - and not any other country - we couldn't have the airtime as there would be other shows that would be released in multiple countries.

However it would seem like the policy wouldn't be consistently applied to other people looking at it.

Does Hulu (or Netflix for that matter) have an exact time when they release the episodes? I thought it's something like "beginning of the day" approximate timing.

Would it be feasible to allow SC and higher to set a flag on Web Channel Shows (on those such as Netflix/Hulu) to say that they only air in one country, therefore allowing the time to be set?

david wrote:
I've been thinking about this recently. I proposed an idea a while ago but didn't get any feedback, so let's try it again :)

We could change the policy to state that a Web Channel should only have a country set when they're only available in one single country. For example, Netflix (worldwide) or Hulu (US and Japan) would not have a country, but something like CBS All Access (US only) would have its country set to the US.

Nothing would change for Web Channels without a country, but for Web Channels that have a set country we'd make it possible to add episode airtimes. These episodes would then be displayed in that country's schedule as well.

Is there any non-global web channels that available in more than one country? Like US+Canada or something. That would be the only thing which wouldn't work in this scheme. Otherwise it's fine by me :)

tnt wrote:
Does Hulu (or Netflix for that matter) have an exact time when they release the episodes? I thought it's something like "beginning of the day" approximate timing.

No idea, it was just used as an example of a web channel that streams in multiple countries. If you want one that does stream in multiple countries and has a fixed schedule then one example is Crunchyroll.

tnt wrote:
Does Hulu (or Netflix for that matter) have an exact time when they release the episodes? I thought it's something like "beginning of the day" approximate timing.

Yeah, as far as I know neither of them releases an exact time.

FYI, the change would only mean that for the country-exclusive Web Channels, an airtime can be set but it doesn't make it required. If there's no known airtime, it could still left empty.

gazza911 wrote:
Would it be feasible to allow SC and higher to set a flag on Web Channel Shows (on those such as Netflix/Hulu) to say that they only air in one country, therefore allowing the time to be set?

Yep, I can make it a protected attribute just like f.e. show names.

david wrote:
Yeah, as far as I know neither of them releases an exact time.

FYI, the change would only mean that for the country-exclusive Web Channels, an airtime can be set but it doesn't make it required. If there's no known airtime, it could still left empty.

I think it's ok if we could make it work at least for some of the channels. Anyway it's better than no airtimes for all. Maybe you'd come to more universal solution in the future :)

tnt wrote:
I think it's ok if we could make it work at least for some of the channels. Anyway it's better than no airtimes for all. Maybe you'd come to more universal solution in the future :)

Yeah, I'd still like to handle Netflix shows more gracefully, but that's so complicated it won't happen any time soon. This should "fix" it for almost every other Web Channel in the mean time.

david wrote:
Yeah, I'd still like to handle Netflix shows more gracefully, but that's so complicated it won't happen any time soon. This should "fix" it for almost every other Web Channel in the mean time.

You mean that release date should correspond with the user's time zone? I think the implementation of separate premiere airdates for different countries gonna be a good start ;) Netflix could fit in the same logic, with automated TZ correction. Anyway, i think non-US Netflix users already trained the ability to calculate the local premiere date themselves :D

tnt wrote:
You mean that release date should correspond with the user's time zone? I think the implementation of separate premiere airdates for different countries gonna be a good start ;) Netflix could fit in the same logic, with automated TZ correction. Anyway, i think non-US Netflix users already trained the ability to calculate the local premiere date themselves :D

You'd still have to decide which is the main country.

gazza911 wrote:
You'd still have to decide which is the main country.

Don't you know which is the main country? :D
The worldwide releases AFAIK are based on US Eastern Time, hour-two after midnight.

I should probably clarify my intentions:
Even on web channels, shows are released at a defined time.
What that time is or in which timezone isn't really important. The problem is that this defined data point is currently not maintained at all.
All software doing timezone calculation is therefore bound to fail.

If something is released in the evening hours in the US, from the currently available data you can't calculate +1 day for us Europeans as from the data we only get the day, which without hours defaults to the same day.



Don't all web channels at least have a default country?
I don't have Netflix but the global release time should be the same for everything, no? (i.e., an episode drops at the same time globally)
If not I at least suspect them to always start with the same country/timezone which would be the initial release time to be maintained.

So basically every web channel could have a time zone. Either the "default" one if it's only available in the US or a "lead" one in which the release hour can me maintained for.

markus wrote:
Don't all web channels at least have a default country?
I don't have Netflix but the global release time should be the same for everything, no? (i.e., an episode drops at the same time globally)
If not I at least suspect them to always start with the same country/timezone which would be the initial release time to be maintained.

So basically every web channel could have a time zone. Either the "default" one if it's only available in the US or a "lead" one in which the release hour can me maintained for.

Not all Netflix releases are global is part of the problem.

Anyway, david has mentioned that for the simple one country web channels, the time will be allowed to be entered - he posted in the API Changelog that due to the this change, episodes on Web Channels would begin to appear in the schedule.

gazza911 wrote:
Not all Netflix releases are global is part of the problem.

I don't see the problem. All episodes still have a defined initial release time in the global Netflix lead time zone, even if only released somewhere else.
It's not about when something becomes available where (or that it might become available at different times in different countries), it's only about the first air date of each episode on its network or channel.
If Netflix were to release something exclusively in Spain at 9am local time and Eastern Time is the Netflix lead time zone, the release time would be entered as 3am. Problem solved.
The data exists, therefore it should be maintained (and treated as "original air date").

Anyway, david has mentioned that for the simple one country web channels, the time will be allowed to be entered - he posted in the API Changelog that due to the this change, episodes on Web Channels would begin to appear in the schedule.

Anyway, that completely solves my personal Star Trek problem ;)

Thanks for the help, you're awesome!

markus wrote:
I should probably clarify my intentions:
Even on web channels, shows are released at a defined time.

True, but not all of the channels have a fixed time for the release. Netflix, Hulu or Amazon, for example, only announce a premiere date, not a specific time. While it could be approximated as "sometime after midnight", it's not exact and not the same for all releases. IMO only a streaming services of the broadcasting networks, like CBSAA, have a proper schedule, with date and time. And soon we will be able to use that :)