As more and more networks opt to both air episodes on a traditional weekly release schedule AND release the entire season for streaming online, any insight into whether/how TV Maze plans to reflect this?
tunefind wrote:
As more and more networks opt to both air episodes on a traditional weekly release schedule AND release the entire season for streaming online, any insight into whether/how TV Maze plans to reflect this?
TVmaze lists them as first aired. If a channel airs them once per week starting from the 17th of November for example, but releases all episodes on Internet on that specific date, we will lists all episodes as 17 November. however if all episodes are added as bulk stream after they have been airing on TV, we stick to the airing times and not the bulk times
Also check out the policy on episode airdates: http://www.tvmaze.com/faq/15/episodes
I wasn't suggesting changing the air dates. And I actually disagree with the policy of converting air date over to stream dates in these cases where they broadcast weekly AND bulk release. If you auto-convert "air dates" to the date when episodes are streamable, then you lose the ability to power episode air date reminders/recaps linked to the broadcast airing throughout the season, and help users orient themselves to when they viewed the episode - a step back for the services that use your data, where having the broadcast air date provides another opportunity to engage users.
I think air date should be the official broadcast air date - either traditional weekly broadcast schedule or premiere date for series that are bulk shipped ONLY. And in cases where a show has BOTH weekly broadcasts and bulk streaming, I would be in favor of a more sophisticated solution that would allow trusted editors to flag them as streamable as of a certain date, separate from the air dates.
Note: Just off the top of my head, Aquarius, Flesh and Bone, Satisfaction season 2 are all recent examples of this, and I suspect this practice will increase moving forward. And I would NOT be in favor of changing the air dates you already have listed for those, even though they do not follow the policy you've described above and in the link.
I agree, it's not because a network that is NOT a streaming service, offers all the episodes after airing the first that the airdate should be the one used for releasing all online. This would be incorrect information.
I think this should fall under alternative airdate...
tunefind wrote:
I wasn't suggesting changing the air dates. And I actually disagree with the policy of converting air date over to stream dates in these cases where they broadcast weekly AND bulk release. If you auto-convert "air dates" to the date when episodes are streamable, then you lose the ability to power episode air date reminders/recaps linked to the broadcast airing throughout the season, and help users orient themselves to when they viewed the episode - a step back for the services that use your data, where having the broadcast air date provides another opportunity to engage users.
I think air date should be the official broadcast air date - either traditional weekly broadcast schedule or premiere date for series that are bulk shipped ONLY. And in cases where a show has BOTH weekly broadcasts and bulk streaming, I would be in favor of a more sophisticated solution that would allow trusted editors to flag them as streamable as of a certain date, separate from the air dates.
A couple of years ago I probably would have agreed with you. Right now, not so much anymore.
More and more, TV shows are moving away from traditional broadcast networks and onto streaming services. Following broadcast dates when a show premiered on a streaming service would just be awkward; our watch list for example would only show one or two episodes while the whole season could be world-wide available already.
A system as you describe for "alternate" airdates has been requested a lot. I'm not too fond of it in all possible scenarios, but marking the "broadcast premiere" in addition to the world premiere sounds like a valuable addition. Creating such a system is an enormous amount of work though, you'll have to live with the current situation for now. :)
But he's not talking about shows that are streamed online first. He's talking about network shows that are made available afterwards or at the same time they air. It makes no sense to use the streaming date for these.
Loads of networks have always tried to sample their shows first. Now they use internet, but before they would do previews either on their network or in cinemas. Thi is not different, jus an evolution of how it is offered.
There's a difference between hulu, netflix or amazon prime and what networks do.
Yeah - I don't think you actually read my comment carefully. :-)
I'm not talking about last season being released on Netflix. I'm talking about (for example) NBC broadcasting ep 101 of Aquarius and, on the same day, posting the entire season on their website for viewing. AND then ALSO continuing to broadcast a new episode on TV each week for the rest of the season. If you make all that season's episode air dates match those of episode 101 (as Thomas states the policy above), then you will, in fact break watch lists (yours and the sites that use your data!!!!) - which was my point exactly in arguing AGAINST changing air dates to reflect an internet release.
Yet there is a valid use case for knowing that an episode is out there (somewhere) and available for viewing prior to an official broadcast air date. Hence my request for some alternate field or way of noting.
Actually, I'm pretty sure I understand what you wrote. You're talking about a situation like http://www.tvmaze.com/shows/197/da-vincis-demons season 3, right?
What I wrote still applies there. The entire season 3 has been available since October 24. Since then pretty much everybody who has access to the Starz channel has had access to watch them through Starz Play. Heck, they are apparently even available as illegal downloads (https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/3q4ao...) since the 24th.
So we set the airdates to the 24th.
Ofcourse if somebody is following the show on broadcast TV instead of online, the airdates won't be right for them. But if we'd use the broadcast TV airdates instead, it wouldn't be right for all the people who watch the episodes online: their watch list would only show a handful of episodes while in fact all the episodes are already available to them.
It's really the same case as a show that's originally from the UK, later being broadcast in the US. In such a case, we stick to the UK airdates. Nobody would argue that, I'm not sure why you think this situation is any different. I'm pretty sure that the majority of the show's fans here on TVmaze are not going to sit around and wait 3 months for broadcast TV to catch up if the episodes are already available online.
Like I said, I understand that noting the alternate airdates in some of these scenarios could be useful, and since it's one of the most requested features it's likely that we'll support that at some point in the future. But the primary dates will always follow the world premiere date, regardless of the source.
david wrote:
Actually, I'm pretty sure I understand what you wrote. You're talking about a situation like http://www.tvmaze.com/shows/197/da-vincis-demons season 3, right?
What I wrote still applies there. The entire season 3 has been available since October 24. Since then pretty much everybody who has access to the Starz channel has had access to watch them through Starz Play. Heck, they are apparently even available as illegal downloads (https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/3q4ao...) since the 24th.
So we set the airdates to the 24th.
Ofcourse if somebody is following the show on broadcast TV instead of online, the airdates won't be right for them. But if we'd use the broadcast TV airdates instead, it wouldn't be right for all the people who watch the episodes online: their watch list would only show a handful of episodes while in fact all the episodes are already available to them.
It's really the same case as a show that's originally from the UK, later being broadcast in the US. In such a case, we stick to the UK airdates. Nobody would argue that, I'm not sure why you think this situation is any different. I'm pretty sure that the majority of the show's fans here on TVmaze are not going to sit around and wait 3 months for broadcast TV to catch up if the episodes are already available online.
Like I said, I understand that noting the alternate airdates in some of these scenarios could be useful, and since it's one of the most requested features it's likely that we'll support that at some point in the future. But the primary dates will always follow the world premiere date, regardless of the source.
I also think it's good to stay with the very first air date, no mather what source. But alternative airdates should indeed be implemented in the future I think
Still not sure you're fully understanding how co-mingling "air dates" in one field (or randomly in alternate unspecified air dates) will break things for users of TVMaze data. Which is weird to me because your own home page takes advantage of air date-based promotion ("Airing Tonight" and "Schedule" sections). By overriding "air dates" with online premiere dates, you're eliminating the ability to push promote those episodes over many months (making marketers very sad). I can appreciate the need to notify users that an episode is available for viewing so they can see that on their watchlist, but when you do look at building out your alternate air dates functionality, I strongly request you have distinct and specific data fields for broadcast and online availability, so that people can target those data fields to support specific functionality. Mixing them together just creates a mess.
And understand that my comments are coming as an API user, not a TVMaze site user. If you want to build your API usage - as you have been actively trying to do in the wake of TVRage's shutdown - then you need data fields to be clean, consistent, and specific.
tunefind wrote:
And understand that my comments are coming as an API user, not a TVMaze site user. If you want to build your API usage - as you have been actively trying to do in the wake of TVRage's shutdown - then you need data fields to be clean, consistent, and specific.
I think this is pretty simple after all, we list each and every episode with its premiere airdate, no matter in which country that was, no matter if it was online.
First airing worldwide gets entered. I really do not see how that can be confusing, if we would do it in any other way , the site would be a mess.
If Starz puts the whole season 3 of Da Vinci online at the first of November, then this is the PREMIERE airdate and will be entered, everything else are just repeats and so far we do not track or enter repeats.
cheers
Juan