1960–61 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning) ( talk| | history| logs| links| watch) ( XfD| restore)

This was at least the 26th AfD of one of these US TV schedule lists over the past 13 years (full list below)

• 16 keeps, 6 deletes, 3 no consensus
• The last AfD (2018) was closed as delete after one !vote with no relisting (same closing admin)
• The one before that was a 2015 keep

This AfD was open for 3 weeks

• About 20 Saturday morning articles were nominated
• First round: 3 editors commented in favor of keep, 3 editors commented in favor of delete (3-3)
• Second round: an editor commented in favor of keep (4-3)
• Third round: relisted by the closing admin on Nov. 24.
• On Nov. 29 an editor commented in favor of keep (5-3)
• On 2 December 2018 10:09 an editor commented in favor of delete (5-4)
• On 2 December 2018 11:01 an editor commented in favor of delete (5-5)
• On 2 December 2018 11:29 the RfD was closed as a "delete

Closing reason: The result was delete. Given that there is a directly on-issue policy based on broad community consensus, in this case WP:NOTTVGUIDE, telling us that our articles are not "electronic program guides", the "keep" opinions would need to be very persuasive and well-grounded in policy. That is not the case. Only Levivich (somewhat joined by Postdlf) makes a valid argument by attempting to persuade us that these are "historically significant program lists and schedules", but I don't see their argument that a random range of some 20 years is "historically significant" convincing many people here. The other "keep" opinions simply refer to past discussions instead of making arguments of their own; they thereby fail to address the WP:NOTTVGUIDE issue that is the elephant in the room here. Per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS (which is misapplied in the discussion), "consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale", which means that merely referring to past AfDs is not a strong argument to make in the face of clear policy compliance issues. The "keep" opinions here must therefore be given significantly less weight for mostly not making any policy-based arguments.

I asked the admin to relist; response: Sorry, no. The discussion ran for three weeks; this was ample time for introducing evidence about the significance (if there is any) of these TV programming schedules. In addition, I find it difficult to imagine that there are sources that establish all of three decades' worth of TV programming as particularly historically significant. This is clearly not what WP:NOTTVGUIDE refers to.

I posted a list of sources on admin's talk page (list below); response ( diff): Levivich, this is an impressive amount of sources. But I remain unconvinced that it would have materially impacted the AfD. Based on the titles, these sources establish that the topic of (US) TV programming is well covered by reliable sources. These sources would be a good basis for a prose article about US TV programming, which might include some exemplary schedules, but they do not establish that we need to include all of the uncommented and uncontextualized primary data itself, in apparent violation of WP:NOT. I therefore decline to relist or undo my AfD closure.

I am requesting the deletion be reversed because:

1. I think the closing admin misread the consensus, and it was "no consensus," not "delete consensus"
2. I don't think a heightened standard should have been applied in order for the article to be kept
3. "Significant new information" (the sources below) should be presented in light of I find it difficult to imagine that there are sources that establish all of three decades' worth of TV programming as particularly historically significant.
   • Many sources were posted in prior AfD discussions, but in this discussion, editors referred to those prior discussions/sources without re-listing them. Since this was the reason given by the closing admin, and others may feel the same way, I think sharing these sources/quotes might impact the outcome of an AfD
4. I don't think sources should be judged based on their titles, so I am including pull-quotes below, as well as the links. Sorry for the length; I only paste all these quotes because the closing admin said my last list with only titles didn't cut it.

Scholarship re: TV schedules generally
An Introduction to Television Studies on why TV schedules are important:

• p. 19: "Studying programmes closely as single texts also has the disadvantage of separating a programme from its place in the schedule of the day in which it was broadcast. There are some television programmes which viewers might select and view with special attention (‘must see’ programmes)...At present, television is most often watched as a sequence of programmes, ads, trailers, etc., and of course viewers also switch channels, sometimes part-way through a programme, and their level of attention may vary considerably from moment to moment and programme to programme. Indeed, within programmes, high-points or turning-points are included by programme-makers where breaks for advertisements are to be included. This is done to encourage viewers to stay on the same channel to find out what the consequences or developments will be once the programme returns after the break. The two consequences of studying programmes as individual units relate to the important Television Studies concept of ‘flow’ (Williams 1974). Selecting individual programmes for study means extracting them from the flow of material of which they are a part, and which might have important effects on their meaning. For example, a news programme including items about rising petrol prices might be followed by a commercial break including ads for new cars, and then the programme Fifth Gear, where new cars are reviewed and motoring issues are discussed. While each programme or ad might be interesting to analyse in itself, more meanings relating to speed, pollution, road safety or masculine bravado might arise because of the connections between the programmes and ads in this television flow."

• pp.3-4: "Television Studies has tried to address this situation by looking not only at individual programmes but also at the ways they link together. These links might be in terms of the similarities of one programme with another ... The links might also be in the planning and organisation of a period of viewing, for example an evening’s television schedule on a certain channel. Planning a schedule to include variety, yet also a continuity of interest that can keep a viewer tuned to a single channel, can tell us a lot about how an idea of the viewing audience and its interests drives the organisation of television and assumptions about how television is used and enjoyed. The links between programmes in a schedule are the responsibility of the institutions that broadcast them, and looking at how television institutions work has been important to Television Studies’ understanding of the medium’s role as an industrial product, made and organised in different ways in different parts of the world."

• p. 9: "The discussion of understandings of audience is placed in the context of how broadcasters try to attract and hold audiences, especially through the ways they schedule programmes. The chapter concludes with a case study on television scheduling which develops these issues in more specific detail."

• p. 16: "Like music hall variety performances, talent shows are either really or apparently live, take place in an auditorium setting and are made up of a mix of types of content. But at the same time, on television their domesticity is signified by the placement of the programme within the routines of a schedule designed to match the rhythms of domestic life (mealtimes, work versus leisure time, etc.), modes of address that assume a home audience, and the use of multi-camera shooting techniques to edit the material into an event for television rather than a relayed performance. Television’s hybridity is evident in how some genres of programme borrow and adapt cultural forms."

This book (p.323) explains how TV schedules are analyzed: "Strategies for distributing content in a media world with low barriers to entry are vastly different today because the old strategies are less effective. Still, it is necessary to understand the old strategies, most of which gained popularity in the heyday of broadcast television when scheduling was king. Adams and Eastman (2013) list 14 "classic" scheduling strategies from television's era of limited choices: anchoring, lead-in, hammock, blocking, doubling, linchpin (also known as tentpoling), bridging, countering, blunting, stunting, supersizing, seamless (transition between programs), rotating, and strip sampling (not the same as stripping a syndicated game show or off-network rerun). Each strategy was born in a three- or four-way race for viewer attention in prime time (e.g., 8–11 p.m. Eastern)."

From the Media, Culture & Society journal: "Scheduling is television's key management tool, defining the nature of broadcast output. Yet it has scarcely been studied. Using examples from British television, this article argues that scheduling is the key mechanism by which the structures of television reproduce themselves afresh, day after day. It is the point where the perceived habits and preferences of past viewing audiences govern the arrangement of future television, providing the basic pattern of broadcasting, interpreting and shaping the habits and actions of its viewers and non-viewers. It specifies what programmes are to be made and defines the character or `brand' of each channel and thus the character of each national television universe. As such, it has provided a powerful bulwark against globalization."

The Columbia History of American Television pp. 326–327, Columbia Press: "...Turner's talent was not so much in programming as in counterprogramming. For example, at almost the same moment that CBS was purging its schedule of 'hayseed comedies,' Turner was acquiring such rural favorites as Petticoat Junction, The Andy Griffith Show, and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. In addition, Channel 17 also scheduled, in daily back-to-back 'strip form,' other classic off-network series like The Lucy Show, Gilligan's Island, Leave It to Beaver, and Father Knows Best. ... Turner also filled out his schedule with cartoons, country music blocks, and such timeless Saturday morning kiddie fare as The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, and Abbott & Costello. ... Turner even performed as the host of Academy Award Theater, a movie showcase scheduled on Sunday morning to counter the traditional religious fare appearing on competing stations. Clearly, Turner's 'good old days' counterprogramming was meant to appeal to the Southern audience that was then being systematically abandoned by the networks."

This journal on counterprogramming: "This study analyzed the mean shares of network primetime series aired from 1963 to 1985. It was found that the network that counterprograms the situation in which competing networks are blunting each other with programs of the same type has done well, although counterprogramming with movies may have some limitations. The network that blunts another network's program by offering a program of a similar type, though, has tended to do poorly whenever the third network countered with a program of a different type. The data suggest that programmers would be wise to counterprogram situations in which the competing networks are blunting each other and avoid placing themselves in blunting situations."

Encyclopedia Britannica discussing the cultural significance of The Mary Tyler Moore Show airing at the same time as That Girl: "Although news coverage brought increasingly disturbing reports as the decade progressed, prime-time programming presented an entirely different picture. The escapist fictional fare of prime time made little reference to what was being reported on the news. That began to change in the late 1960s and early ’70s, but the transition was an awkward one; some shows began to reflect the new cultural landscape, but most continued to ignore it. That Girl (ABC, 1966–71), an old-fashioned show about a single woman living and working in the big city—with the help of her boyfriend and her “daddy”—aired on the same schedule as The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS, 1970–77), a new-fashioned comedy about a single woman making it on her own. In the same week, one could watch The Lawrence Welk Show (ABC, 1955–71), a 15-year-old musical variety program that featured a legendary polka band, and Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In (NBC, 1968–73), an irreverent new comedy-variety show plugged into the 1960s counterculture."

"This paper introduces SPOT (Scheduling Programs Optimally for Television), an analytical model for optimal prime-time TV program scheduling." - Management Science
Scholarship re: Saturday morning TV schedules This book at mit.edu has a chapter "From Saturday Morning to Around the Clock"

• p. 61: "Yet this early period was the formative era for television cartoons, establishing most of the assumptions that the genre would adhere to until the 1990s–especially for industrial practices, as television networks linked the genre explicitly with a scheduling timeslot that would come to define the cultural category with a three--word phrase: Saturday morning cartoons."

• p. 62: "Cartoons had virtually disappeared from other parts of the network time schedule, with the era of primetime cartoon experimentation ending by the mid-1960s. Syndicated cartoons still persisted across the schedule, but ratings were far weaker, especially among adults. Most importantly, cartoons were now culturally defined as a genre whose primary audience was children, and not legitimate entertainment for adults as part of a mass audience."

This journal article explores those TV scheduling strategies for Saturday morning cartoons: "This study investigated the effects of various programming strategies, commonly employed by the networks, on program popularity for children. Viewing data for prime time and Saturday morning program were collected in the fall, winter, and spring of the ‘75-'76 season. Simple correlations supported the relationship between program popularity and the following programming strategies: counterprogramming by type, block programming by type, inheritance effects, starting time, program familiarity, and character familiarity. Regression analysis, which controlled for relationships among programming strategies, confirmed the effects of program familiarity and starting time only. The results, suggest that children are not highly adventurous viewers. On the contrary, it appears that past experience with a program coupled with availability of the child audience are overriding determinants of program popularity."

Encyclopedia Britannica on why Saturday is an important day for television: "To encourage sales, daytime sports broadcasts were scheduled on weekends in an effort to lure heads of households to purchase sets they saw demonstrated in local appliance stores and taverns—the venues where most TV viewing in America took place before 1948."

This book p. 180: "The kind of programming one sees on Saturday morning is decidedly different from what airs on most stations on Thursday evening or Sunday afternoon. The differences occur because, even though one individual may watch television at all of those times, the core mass of viewers for each of those time periods is seen as demographically distinct. At the same time, a variety of interest are balanced in the production and programming of any single show. ... Moreover, the production of multiple ideological positions can be viewed as an effect of programming practices, as individual episodes and programs are situated within the larger system of program flow."

This book p. 194 discusses TV cartoons changing from superheroes -> Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids -> Saturday morning -> Schoolhouse Rocks
TV schedules analyzed (not just reported) by the media

TVGuide 2013 "Inside the Scheduling Wars: Why TV Lineups Still Matter"

"Why is TV scheduling important" from some company that sells some kind of services having to do with TV scheduling.

Business Insider: "'The fourth network'—the name that became synonymous with FOX—flipped the television model on its head, aggressively challenging how the other three networks ran their line-ups, adding unheard of weekend prime-time line-ups and stealing the NFL games from CBS... Many of FOX's counterprogramming techniques not only led to the network's ultimate success, but also helped shape television today. ... One other insight was that the big networks were required by the government to dedicate 7-8 p.m.Sunday nights to news or family programming. Since FOX wasn't officially a network, it didn't have to play by these rules. It could air whatever it wanted during that time, providing a much-needed leg up on the competition. When the network premiered, Fox decided to air two shows back to back and repeated their airings twice consecutively. Sunday: "Married ... with Children" 7 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m. "The Tracey Ulman Show" 7:30 p.m., 8:30 p.m., 9:30 p.m. ... However, it wasn't all pretty for Fox's favorite cartoon family. The show stirred the pot often. A few countries have banned the show from their lineups, and in 1990, an ABC executive said "The Simpsons" "lowered the civility level of young boys all over America."

Business Insider (same article as above): "The network saw a chance to make Saturday mornings a home for kids, as much as ABC made TGIF a staple. During the 1991-1992 season, the kids' block made huge headway with shows including, "Beetlejuice," "Batman the Animated Series" and "Tiny Toon Adventures." The Fox Saturday morning directly competed with NBC and by December of 1991, the big three channel waved the white flag, pulled their cartoon block on the weekend and reverted to airing Saturday TODAY, a weekend component to its weekday version. FOX took the opportunity to expand its Saturday morning lineup. In the years to follow, weekday afternoon scheduling followed along with other big hits including "Power Rangers," which almost never came to air."

WaPo "Saturday morning cartoons are no more": "In 1992, NBC was the first broadcast network to swap Saturday morning cartoons for teen comedies such as “Saved by the Bell” and a weekend edition of the “Today” show. Soon, CBS and ABC followed suit. In 2008, Fox finally replaced Saturday morning cartoons with infomercials."

LATimes 1992: "NBC said Friday that it will officially bid goodby to young children on Saturday mornings Sept. 12, when the network drops the last of its cartoons to pick up three new live-action series targeted at teen-agers--"Name Your Adventure," "California Dreams" and "Double Date." By also adding a second half-hour installment of "Saved By the Bell," currently the top-rated Saturday-morning program among teens, NBC will create a 2 1/2-hour block of programming for older kids starting at 10 a.m."

WaPo 1996: "CBS, which has long had trouble in the weekend kiddie competition, announced yesterday that next fall it will devote three hours on Saturday mornings to children's educational/informational programming and another two hours to a network news broadcast for grown-ups... Details of the fall CBS schedule, including the children's lineup, will be announced in February, but a network source yesterday suggested a "distinct possibility" that the news broadcast, to be called "CBS News Saturday Morning," could directly compete with the weekend edition of NBC's "Today," which is seen here on WRC for two hours starting at 7, and the weekend edition of ABC's "Good Morning America," which starts its two hours on WJLA at 8 ... CBS's 17-years-young "Sunday Morning" already provides classy counterprogramming to the Sunday editions of the NBC and ABC magazines ..."

Variety 1998: "CBS dropped out of the Saturday-morning cartoon race last year in a bid to counterprogram the long-dominant Fox Kids Network and help the Eye web stand out amid increased competition from netlets UPN and the WB and cablers like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network."

The Norman Rockwell Museum website has an article: "Hanna-Barbera: The Architects of Saturday Morning"

Grunge: "The real reason why Saturday morning cartoons disappeared, discussing the impact of the 1990 Children's Television Act and 1996 enforcement actions upon the "death" of Saturday morning cartoons

Another article about Saturday Morning cartoons:

• "When NBC and CBS began reducing their childrens programming on Saturdays in 1988-1990, FOX jumped aboard the bandwagon and laid the cornerstone for its FOX Kids Network. NBC chose to delve into live-action teen entertainment, hallmarked by Saved by the Bell. Presently, NBC is in partnership with Discovery Kids; a Saturday edition of Today either precedes or follows Discovery Kids. CBS initially chose to replace its cartoons with news from local affiliates and now airs a national morning show, which is either preceded or followed by childrens content from Nick Jr."
• "Most FOX affiliates did not have local news, so FOX Kids was able to go to a six-day-a-week schedule. For the first time, you had a set of kids who had Saturday morning fare six days a week. FOX started to feed an appetite but it was only two hours a day. Before the FOX Kids weekday lineup in 1991, weekday cartoons existed in the realm of syndication. The difficulty with syndicating any show is that local affiliates determine a shows timeslot. There is no continuity across the country and no way to promote the proceeding show. FOX Kids weekday lineup created a single promotional machine, adds Gaither. FOX Kids came on at the same time across the country and promoted to the next day [and Saturday]. FOX Kids created a need in kids for more programming aimed directly at them. Problems for cartoons on broadcast networks stemmed from what began as "promoting to the next show" on FOX. Promoting to the next show transformed into a churning desire in children to see more programming."

LATimes: "The programming schedule remains an important part of TV...You can see what happens when a hit like 'The Big Bang Theory' is a lead-in as opposed to a normal show being a lead-in. Having a big lead-in affects the performance of the shows behind it. Scheduled shows that are big tent poles drive viewers to other shows..."

Chicago Tribune: "Yogi Bear eventually gave way to Scooby-Doo. "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" gave way to "Slimer! And the Real Ghostbusters." And then "Pokemon" gave way to "Yu-Gi-Oh!" Saturday morning cartoons' time has given way to something else too. It's just another one of those things you don't miss until it's gone (like the iPod Classic)."

1991 Baltimore Sun article discussing cartoons aimed at young kids sponsored by toy companies vs. shows aimed at teenagers sponsored by clothing companies, and comparing the Saturday morning and weekday afternoon (after-school) timeslots. "It was about a decade ago that those little blue creatures kept NBC from getting out of the Saturday morning children's cartoon business. 'The Smurfs' became a huge hit and plans to put on a Saturday version of 'Today' went back on the shelf. Now, the network executives have dusted those plans off and are presenting them to a meeting of some of its affiliate stations this week in Palm Springs, Calif. It's expected that in the next year or so, NBC will launch a two-hour "Today" that will run 8 to 10 a.m. on Saturdays, followed by two hours of programming aimed at a teen-age audience or a slightly younger group that NBC likes to call 'tweens.'"

In 2016: "Preteen Saturday Morning Kids Shows Abandoned By Broadcast Networks" (about the Children's Television Act) "Litton’s Game Changers, which airs Saturday mornings on CBS stations as part of the CBS Dream Team block, highlights inspirational stories about athletes who give back to their communities. ... Each episode of the half-hour show, which includes 7.5 minutes of advertising, is “Presented by” and “Sponsored by” EA Sports, whose logo can be seen on-screen more than 30 different times on each show. Host Kevin Frazier even introduces the show as “AE Sports’ Game Changers,” though CBS doesn’t call it that on its website and CBS stations don’t refer to it as such in the quarterly reports they file with the FCC. Each Game Changers also ends with a three-minute behind-the scenes-look ... Unlike actual infomercials, which pay the stations to air their paid programming, Litton’s shows receive no license fees from the stations. “This is not paid programming,” Meg LaVigne, president of television at Litton, said, “but high-quality, award-winning content that relies, in part, on partnerships to deliver compelling stories to audiences across the country.” The FCC’s ban on “host-selling” prohibits the use of “program talent or other identifiable program characteristics to deliver commercials during or adjacent to children’s programming featuring that character.” But ABC’s Jack Hanna’s Wildlife Countdown, another Litton show, gets around this rule because it says its target audience is kids aged 13-16, which qualifies it as a “core program” but exempts it from the “host-selling” rule." (Wikipedia article on Litton's_Weekend_Adventure.)

NYTimes: "The audience losses appeared to be a result of the continued dominance of top-rated Nickelodeon, improved ratings at Cartoon Network and new efforts this season by CBS and PBS to tailor their programming to ages 2 to 5, an audience that had fewer options on Saturday mornings. CBS's Saturday morning lineup was programmed for toddlers by Nickelodeon this television season. (Both outlets are owned by Viacom). Shows like Flying Rhino Junior High and Blaster's Universe were replaced by Nickelodeon shows like Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer and presented together under a Nick Jr. on CBS title. Thanks to the new lineup, CBS's young audience more than doubled. PBS meanwhile introduced a block of weekend morning children's cartoons. Called Bookworm Bunch, the block includes shows like Corduroy, Elliot Moose and Timothy Goes to School. With it, the PBS stations showed a combined increase of roughly 50 percent in their children's audience on Saturday mornings this season. But very young children were not the whole story in children's television. Fox and WB were clearly hurt by an erosion of the audience for their big Saturday morning hits imported from Japan, Digimon for Fox and Pokémon for WB, though Pokémon remains the top-rated Saturday morning cartoon in broadcast television."

How Stuff Works: An article about the job of programming director that mentions the significance of The Simpsons moving in 1990 from Sunday night to Thursday night opposite The Cosby Show.

Vox: An article about the significance of fall TV lineups to advertisers and the concept of "upfronts" (prepaid ad buys)

Even more links...

• Sources listed at previous AfDs
  1. Graves, Earl G. (1986). Black Enterprise. Earl G. Graves, Ltd. (discussing a TV executive's Saturday morning scheduling)
  2. Shapiro, Mitchell (1992-09-01). Television Network Weekend Programming, 1959-1990 (1st ed.). Jefferson, N.C: McFarland. ISBN  9780899506821.
  3. Salmans, Sandra. "WHY SATURDAY MORNING IS ONE BIG 'CARTOON GHETTO'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  4. HAITHMAN, DIANE (1987-09-03). "HOW IMAGE MAKERS SHAPE KIDS' TV : Q5 Firm Advises ABC on the Look and Style of Cartoon Shows; Some Writers Call It Intrusion". Los Angeles Times. ISSN  0458-3035. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  5. Heldenfels, Richard D. (1994). Television's Greatest Year: 1954. Continuum International Publishing Group, Limited. ISBN  9780826406750.
  6. Hyatt, Wesley (1997-10-01). The Encyclopedia of Daytime Television: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Daytime TV but Didn't Know Where to Look! from American Bandstand, As the World Turns, and Bugs Bunny, to. New York: Watson-Guptill Pubns. ISBN  9780823083152.
  7. Headen, Robert S.; Klompmaker, Jay E.; Rust, Roland T. (1979). "The Duplication of Viewing Law and Television Media Schedule Evaluation". Journal of Marketing Research. 16 (3): 333–340. doi: 10.2307/3150707.
  8. Castleman, Harry (1984). The TV Schedule Book: Four Decades of Network Programming from Sign-On to Sign-Off. New York: McGraw-Hill Companies. ISBN  9780070102774.Haralovich, Mary Beth; Rabinovitz, Lauren (1999). Television, History, and American Culture: Feminist Critical Essays. Duke University Press. ISBN  082232394X.
  9. Wheatley, Helen (2007-12-15). Re-viewing Television History: Critical Issues in Television Historiography. I.B.Tauris. ISBN  9781845111885.
  10. Dominick, Joseph R.; Pearce, Millard C. (1976-03-01). "Trends in Network Prime-Time Programming, 1953–74". Journal of Communication. 26 (1): 70–80. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1976.tb01360.x. ISSN  0021-9916.
  11. Shapiro, Mitchell E. (1989). Television Network Prime-Time Programming, 1948-1988. McFarland. ISBN  9780899504124.
  12. Shapiro, Mitchell E. (2009). Television Network Prime Time Programming, 1985-2007. McFarland & Company. ISBN  9780786438129.
  13. Brooks, Tim; Marsh, Earle F. (2007-10-16). The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows, 1946-present (9th ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN  9780345497734.
  14. HAITHMAN, DIANE (1988-02-20). "Playing for Ratings : Networks Program, Then Counterprogram". Los Angeles Times. ISSN  0458-3035. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  15. Adalian, Josef. "Why 1994-95 Was One of Network TV's Last Truly Great Seasons". Vulture. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  16. Littleton, Cynthia (2015-01-29). "NBC's 'Blacklist' Move Creates Drama Over Thursday Lineup". Variety. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  17. Kissell, Rick (2014-07-28). "CBS Moves 'Extant' to 10 p.m., Away From Summer's Top Show". Variety. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  18. O'Neal, Sean. "NBC's Thursday night comedies receive cold, mocking laughter from the ratings". News. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  19. LOWRY, BRIAN (2000-04-14). "'TGIF'? Well, ABC's Not So Sure Anymore". Los Angeles Times. ISSN  0458-3035. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  20. Steinberg, Brian (2014-05-14). "CBS To Launch 'NCIS,' 'CSI' Spinoffs, Start 'Big Bang' On Monday". Variety. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  21. "Saturday night is dead, yes, but Friday, too?". SFGate. 2007-10-09. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  22. "'Grimm' and other shows that have escaped the Friday Night Death Slot". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2018-12-02.
  23. Welch, Michelle. "ABC cancels Ugly Betty; killed by Friday night death slot". AV Club. Retrieved 2018-12-02.

• Wikipedia articles about TV schedule slots
  • Saturday-morning cartoon
  • Friday night death slot
  • Animation Domination
  • TGIF (ABC)
  • The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946–Present
• Prior AfDs
  1. (2005 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1959-60 American network television schedule
  2. (2006 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1997-1998 United States network television schedule
  3. (2006 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1985-86 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)
  4. (2007 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1983-84 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)
  5. (2007 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2007-08 United States network television schedule (old)
  6. (2007 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2007-08 United States network television schedule
  7. (2007 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1982-83 United States network television schedule
  8. (2007 no consensus, default keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The US network TV schedule articles
  9. (2007 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1949-1950 United States network television schedule (weekday)
  10. (2007 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1951-1952 United States network television schedule (weekday)
  11. (2008 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2008-09 United States network television schedule
  12. (2008 no consensus, default keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1991–1992 United States network television schedule (late night)
  13. (2008 keep ) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1982–1983 United States network television schedule (late night)
  14. (2009 no consensus, default keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of United States network television schedules
  15. (2011 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1981–1982 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)
  16. (2011 delete) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2012–2013 United States network television schedule (weekday)
  17. (2011 delete) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2012–13 United States network television schedule
  18. (2011 delete) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2012–13 United States network television schedule (2nd nomination)
  19. (2012 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The US network TV schedule articles (2nd nomination)
  20. (2012 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2012–13 United States network television schedule (3rd nomination)
  21. (2013 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2013–14 United States network television schedule
  22. (2014 delete) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2013–14 United States network television schedule (late night)
  23. (2015 delete) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2002–03 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)
  24. (2015 keep) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2014–15 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)
  25. (2018 delete) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1996–97 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)
  26. (this AfD, 2018 delete) Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1960–61 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)
• Prior RfCs
  • 2008 - discussion on #NOTDIR Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 23#NOTDIR and TV schedules
  • 2009 - Very thorough discussion of the topic Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 30#Per station television schedules

Levivich ( talk) 23:34, 4 December 2018 (UTC) DRV Commentary reply

• Endorse Per the following, responding to the nominator's points one by one:

1. Closing admin misread consensus: I think the delete consensus was valid, and the closer properly identified the policy difference between keeps and deletes
2. Heightened standard: I'm not sure which heightened standard is being referred to
3. Significant new information: There have been a lot of discussions about this topic, and the sources above aren't "new" - there's not significant new information, especially since as far as I can tell, none of these would properly source the articles being commented on, at least as far as I can tell
4. Sources were listed in other AfDs: sources aside, the AfD listed doesn't really discuss the WP:NOTVGUIDE argument which many voters used in the current AfD. SportingFlyer talk 00:07, 5 December 2018 (UTC) reply

• ...the "keep" opinions would need to be very persuasive and well-grounded in policy. (Why was this AfD treated differently from any other AfD, after 25 previous ones mostly resulted in keep consensus?) Levivich ( talk) 01:59, 5 December 2018 (UTC) reply
• Question: Why do none of these properly source the articles? Shapiro 1992 and Castleman 1984? Levivich ( talk) 02:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC) reply

• You inserted a comment within my comment, so I've moved it out immediately following. Furthermore, many of the other AfDs, from what I've seen, and I haven't seen all of them, failed to discus WP:NOTTVGUIDE in detail. SportingFlyer talk 19:06, 6 December 2018 (UTC) reply

• Sorry about putting my comment in the wrong place and thank you for moving it. If you haven't seen all the previous AfDs, please see these, each of which involves detailed discussions of NOTTVGUIDE:

2018 (subject of this delrev)

2015

2012

2011

But I agree not all the previous AfDs discussed NOTTVGUIDE, like this one-!vote delete, and this three-!vote delete. Levivich ( talk) 00:34, 7 December 2018 (UTC) reply

• Uphold deletion. This is the umpteenth time these articles have been nominated for deletion in the last decade and throughout all the reasons under the sun various contributors have come up with to keep these articles, in my view policy trumps all. We have very clear policies on notability, verifibility and what Wikipedia is not and the nominator has made a very thorough case for undeletion but in all had three weeks to demonstrate this directly in the articles. All those sources do not clearly verify or provide notability for the many years of TV programming that are precised to the 1/2 hour time slot they were broadcast in. In particularly two policies become a recurring theme: WP:NOTTVGUIDE and WP:NOTDIR, however this is also a simple case of WP:NOTIINFO as well. In my view they simply do not belong in the encyclopedia and are better suited to another medium, such as Wikisource. Lastly the remaining articles are currently up for deletion (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/1980–81 United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)) so no decision should be made until that AfD has closed. Ajf773 ( talk) 10:04, 5 December 2018 (UTC) reply
• Argument phrased as a question: How can it be that:

• An article about Saturday morning cartoons is OK
• An article about CBS and Hanna-Barbera is OK
• A List of works produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, showing the year each show was released is OK
• An article about The Tom and Jerry Comedy Show, showing what channel it was on and when it was released is OK
• A list of Tom & Jerry episodes in that article, showing what date each episode aired, is OK
• But a table showing what show aired on what channel at what time is "not notable" or "indiscriminate information"? How can information that is notable elsewhere become unimportant when re-arranged into a comparative presentation, especially when the comparative presentation (TV scheduling) is the subject of scholarly study? Why are episode lists encyclopedic but TV schedules not encyclopedic? I'm honestly trying but I just cannot see the distinction. Levivich ( talk) 05:14, 6 December 2018 (UTC) reply

The answer is that your argument has a piece of incorrect information which makes your conclusion based on false facts. In none of those articles do the TV programs have an "Aired at 7pm eastern time", which is why the WP:NOTTVGUIDE specifically mentions electronic program guides, which is what those articles where. Additionally, all of the articles you've listed have a notable context, while the "xxxx United States network television schedule (Saturday morning)" has no context at all. -- Gonnym ( talk) 07:15, 6 December 2018 (UTC) reply

Thank you for narrowing this down for me to the issue of what time the program aired. I think this is an important aspect of a television program, and that's backed up by RS's. I would use examples from 1960s Saturday morning cartoons, but those articles are now deleted, so I can't access the schedules. So I'm going with the 1980s ones from our conversation at that AfD:

The academics who study Saturday morning cartoons focus on what time they're on. For example: Studying programmes closely as single texts also has the disadvantage of separating a programme from its place in the schedule of the day in which it was broadcast...Selecting individual programmes for study means extracting them from the flow of material of which they are a part, and which might have important effects on their meaning... While each programme or ad might be interesting to analyse in itself, more meanings relating to speed, pollution, road safety or masculine bravado might arise because of the connections between the programmes and ads in this television flow. - An Introduction to Television Studies, London: Routledge. The author is saying you cannot understand a television show without understanding its broadcasting context–the "flow"–what comes before, what comes after, and what is on at the same time. It's important that Tom & Jerry precedes Bugs Bunny. It's an example of pairing and lead-in.

For example: This study investigated the effects of various programming strategies, commonly employed by the networks, on program popularity for children...Simple correlations supported the relationship between program popularity and the following programming strategies: counterprogramming by type, block programming by type, inheritance effects, starting time, program familiarity, and character familiarity. - "Programming Strategies and the Popularity of Television Programs for Children", Human Communication Research journal. The study factored in start time, counterprogramming (what else is on at the same time), and blocking (like, Might Mouse + Tom & Jerry + Bugs Bunny + Popeye).

My point being, an article about Tom & Jerry would and should include its airing time, what came before and after it, and what was on at the same time. That's just as important as who produced a TV show or who starred in it. If you made a list of Saturday morning TV shows, you'd want to include network and airtime on that list. If you rearrange that into a TV schedule, that's an improvement of the list, and a legitimate resource for academic researchers, or at least it seems that way to me. Just as much a valuable part of an encyclopedia of human knowledge as a list of all the species of moths, or a list of all the episodes of Game of Thrones. Levivich ( talk) 08:41, 6 December 2018 (UTC) reply

• "policy trumps all. " is a statement that, ironically, is a total misstatement of WP policy. We do have something that trumps all policies except legal considerations, WP:IAR. It's one of the WP:FIVE fundamental principles on which WP is based. We can and do include any article that has consensus to be included. AfD and DR are where we determine it. DGG ( talk ) 01:38, 8 December 2018 (UTC) reply
• Close as moot: the AfD for the remaining pages will decide this. The nominator there didn't even bother writing out a rationale, because it is exactly the same. Modernponderer ( talk) 23:59, 9 December 2018 (UTC) reply

• Comment: There was an AfD for one group of these lists, which only one editor (me) thought should not have been closed as a delete. Then, a second AfD for the remaining lists, referring entirely to the first AfD, was closed with consensus to delete (again, only one editor, me, !voting keep). That doesn't make the closure of the first AfD "moot," that makes the closure of the first AfD endorsed. I think the closing admin deserves to have it on the "permanent record" that this delrev was endorsed, and not closed due to any other reason (like mootness or withdrawal). Given that I've questioned the admin's decision to close, perhaps the admin deserves official affirmation/support/vindication rather than leaving it as any sort of ambiguity. Also, in case this should ever come up again in the future (there are still 100+ of these articles left to be AfD'd...), better to clarify that the Saturday morning schedules were deleted after AfD and the subsequent delrev was endorsed, rather then mooted or withdrawn. Just my two cents (we must be up to several thousand dollars' worth by now). I'm not sure what's best at this point so I leave it up to the community/closing admin (pinging @ Sandstein:), if the preferred/easier thing is for me to withdraw this delrev, I'll withdraw it, but I think it's an endorse. This horse is thoroughly dead. Levivich ( talk) 18:12, 10 December 2018 (UTC) reply

It doesn't really matter to me, but thanks for the ping. Sandstein 18:32, 10 December 2018 (UTC) reply

User:Levivich, to be clear, you were not the only editor who disagreed with the previous close. As I made clear at the new AfD, I did too. But consensus has clearly changed. Modernponderer ( talk) 19:22, 10 December 2018 (UTC) reply

• Endorse deletion. Rationale given does not merit overturning AFD. The argument that this could, maybe, be of interest to pop culture studies someday doesn't trump common sense that this isn't what a general-interest encyclopedia is for. Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 21:47, 11 December 2018 (UTC) reply