Show changing network in midseason

Well, it should be discussed with the authors of the policy, isn't it? What's the point of discussing it here? Yeah, I don't think that it's correct either, so what? It's not that I can do something about it.

I'm fine with whatever makes more sense, even it it breaks the policy, which is far from perfect and can't possibly cover all bases, considering that it's not being updated regularly. And anyways, policy or not, in its current state TVmaze system simply not able to keep a 100% correct data on everything.

If we here find a better approach to deal with this matter, I am sure david and jan will change the policy, so that the users will profit from it :)

Is this so common that it's an actual problem? A show changing networks in the middle of a season should be extremely rare?

david wrote:
Is this so common that it's an actual problem? A show changing networks in the middle of a season should be extremely rare?

It does not happen often but we think that the current policy is not dealing in the best way possible with it. Users who are watching the show won't have any airdates, my approach would be to change the show to the current new network and also use those airdates from the day it changed to it and let the old airdates stay.

JuanArango wrote:
It does not happen often but we think that the current policy is not dealing in the best way possible with it. Users who are watching the show won't have any airdates, my approach would be to change the show to the current new network and also use those airdates from the day it changed to it and let the old airdates stay.

This doesn't sound too bad, given it have some limitations so it only apply to shows actually changing channels in the middle of a season, and not a show getting canceled and the rest of the episodes airs later in another country or years later on a syndication channel and such.

JuanArango wrote:
It does not happen often but we think that the current policy is not dealing in the best way possible with it. Users who are watching the show won't have any airdates, my approach would be to change the show to the current new network and also use those airdates from the day it changed to it and let the old airdates stay.

+1 A note in the shows wiki and/or season summary page detailing when the switch occurred and that the airdates on episodes 1-x are for the old network would at least be on record if there is confusion in the future. The ideal would be to have the system handle multiple networks within season but I have no idea how much coding that would entail.

Aidan wrote:
This doesn't sound too bad, given it have some limitations so it only apply to shows actually changing channels in the middle of a season, and not a show getting canceled and the rest of the episodes airs later in another country or years later on a syndication channel and such.

Again, the ideal would be to have the system handle multiple networks within season and that way it would also be able to natively capture those scenarios with ease.

JuanArango wrote:
It does not happen often but we think that the current policy is not dealing in the best way possible with it. Users who are watching the show won't have any airdates, my approach would be to change the show to the current new network and also use those airdates from the day it changed to it and let the old airdates stay.

+1

Networks are going to become a bigger issue, I think. We already have the problem of shows starting on one network then switching at the end of a season so that our data is wrong concerning the history of a show (and yes, I'm one of those that wants to know what happened in the past as much as what's going to happen in the future). I think this is another symptom of the reality the software is going to need to be more flexible in future to deal with these sorts of problems.

JuanArango wrote:
to change the show to the current new network and also use those airdates from the day it changed to it and let the old airdates stay.

This would made all the past airdates in the season invalid. It's like I've said earlier, we're not able provide a 100% correct data in any non-standard situation.
But at least the future episodes will appear in the user's schedules, so this is better than nothing. If memory serves, we actually did that in the past with some Disney series, which started season on Disney Channel and continued on XD (or vice versa, something like that).

The problem is not in the policy, especially considering what Jan said on multiple occasions, that it is not written in stone and it's up to us to bend it reasonably if we think it's necessary. The problem in this case is that we can't add a new data without breaking the old.

Remind me: what's the benefit to our users to not list airdates when the network changes mid-season?

Judging from SS's comments in the Edit thread:

"How is this serving visitors to pretend a show is on a network it is not and not list airdates because they don't air on the old network?"

Not listing airdates apparently indicates a network change. Or that the dated episodes are one network and the non-dated ones are on the new network. But... that doesn't seem evident. At the very least, it seems to require as much explanation in the season guide as listing the airdates on the new network. Otherwise not listing airdates seems to either indicate the episodes never aired, or the data was omitted.

I agree that in circumstances like this show it doesn't make sense to stick with the old network and add future episodes without an airdate. As long as we can't have multiple seasons with the same season number (in that case we could just have one season with the old network and one with the new one) i think the best solution would be to simply change the network midseason, keep the airdates from the previous network and use airdates from the new network for future episodes and then have it all written down on the editorwiki of when and why the change happened during the season. No it doesn't make it 100% correct but neither is sticking with the old network and blank airdates.

I don't see why not listing air dates for a new network is "correct", or listing the air dates is "incorrect". It's unfortunate that you can't indicate the new network, but the show's position on one network or another doesn't change the fact that... it aired on a date. When someone notices and puts the airdate down for the date that the episode aired, then it's going to be wrong/inconsistent. Or the person will post in the forums asking about the omission and we'll have to explain every time it comes up. Or we notice and go back and forth in an edit war until we hit the limit.

I can see someone asking why a new network isn't indicated, but deleting an airdate? "No air date = mid-season network change" doesn't seem to follow as an indicator.

Seems we are all in agreement here, we only need to ok from david or jan now :)

Aidan wrote:
This doesn't sound too bad, given it have some limitations so it only apply to shows actually changing channels in the middle of a season, and not a show getting canceled and the rest of the episodes airs later in another country or years later on a syndication channel and such.

That is the spirit of the current policy already though.

In cases where premieres within a season are almost evenly split over different sources (Mythbusters would be a notorious example of this), a ruling must be made specifically for that show. Please consult the show's edit wiki when it exists, or open a thread in the Data forums otherwise.

So if a show changes networks in (almost) the middle of a season, the policy allows for making a show-specific rule. Only if the clear majority of episodes aired on the same network, the other episodes' airdates must be left blank.

Sounds to me we can add the airdates then :)

People here have stated it as 'midseason', but for the specific scenario it was 39 out of what will be 52 episodes (one for each week of the Year) on one network. That's three-quarters, not exactly middle.

david wrote:
Only if the clear majority of episodes aired on the same network, the other episodes' airdates must be left blank.

gazza911 wrote:
for the specific scenario it was 39 out of what will be 52 episodes (one for each week of the Year) on one network. That's three-quarters, not exactly middle.

Does that count for clear majority? How many are "clear majority" exactly? 75% is definitely more than a half, does that mean the show in question fall into this category and shouldn't have airdates for the rest of a season (and should stay on old network)?

So?

https://www.tvmaze.com/shows/803/wwe-smackdown-live

Airdates already been added (obviously), network has not been changed, the next episode is in 2 days. Could we make a decision?