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Community Announcements
and the Interstitial Program Schedule

What happened to them?

Program Schedules:

There are (or rather were) three types of interstitial program guides. Interstitials are short filler segments that run during the 90 seconds between programs.

• The "Current Schedule" block of shows (in groups of eight), for evening, overnight, morning, afternoon, etc. This showed the latest list of what's scheduled, since the programmer updates this list as the shows are scheduled.
• The "What's Up Next" is an screen that shows the name of the next show.
• The "New Timeslot" is a screen that shows the new timeslot of a show that has recently been assigned a new timeslot. It plays just prior to the beginning of the show's old timeslot. These screens are updated at the beginning of the month.

The "Current Schedule" SCALA-based program schedules are the only ones that have any chance of being correct and timely (See Reform Access SF - Why the Program Schedule is Not Timely), yet lately even these are wrong. It appears that sometimes the schedules are missing details of which shows and specials are being run in the "to be announced" gaps. Other times, it appears that the program schedule is for the wrong day. It's as if the ON AIR schedule information is not worthy of any attention. How can an audience member determine what's on channel 29?

The "What's Up Next" and "New Timeslot" schedules are missing in action. I haven't seen them for a while, so I fear someone thought they were more trouble than their worth, and disabled them.

Community Announcements

More detailed program guides were also run during "Community Announcements"

Community Announcements is a 1/2 hour SCALA-driven program that runs weekdays from 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 and at 3:30 p.m to 4:00. These 30 minutes allow the flexibility to include more than can fit into 90 seconds of interstitials. This time allows Access SF to play all current public service announcements, as well as comprehensive program guides.

• Listing of all programs by day or week, and time of day.
• Listing of all programs alphabetically, with timeslot expiration dates.
• Listing of new programs and programs with new timeslots.

These program guides are missing in action. I haven't seen them for a while, so I fear someone thought they were more trouble than their worth, and disabled them.

Questions/Comments?