The term "prime time," signifying that portion of the broadcast day when listenership/viewership is potentially greatest (generally the evening hours) has been with us since the golden age of network radio. Since virtually all program origination then was centered about Los Angeles and New York, and since network policies at CBS and NBC's Red and Blue strictly prohibited the use of recordings, radio shows had to be performed live twice. For example, if a program originating in New York at 8 PM were sent through the lines to the West Coast for regional broadcast as it was being performed, it would be broadcast in the Pacific Time Zone at 5 PM, outside of prime time and missing the most potential listeners. A network program originating in Hollywood, if it were to be heard at 8 PM in, say, Pittsburgh, would have to be broadcast first at 5 PM Pacific Time and then redone, live, for the "local" audience at 8 PM Pacific. Daylight Savings Time created insoluble dilemmas. Network television suffered the same problems, but, absence any ban on recorded programming, first kinescopes, later videotape, solved these time-shift problems. Since the producers of *ER* realized that that episode's "liveness" was the promotional hook to draw audience share, they had no choice but to restage the production twice so that the program could still inhabit it "local" time-slot, 10 PM, and be "live," just as Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, Burns and Allen, and others had to do in the '30s. In this vein, can anyone explain why there appeared to be a time lag between the Cubs' game the *ER* crew was viewing locally on WGN during the East Coast feed, and the actual WGN transmission of the game I received here in Columbus, Ohio? The *ER* game lagged behind the actual WGN transmission. My suspicion is that the tape feed to the receiver on the *ER* set was delayed via tape so that at the critical juncture where the cast acknowledges the game, the game would be seen and not an Illinois Lottery commercial or Budweiser ad. _______________________________________________________________________________ William Lafferty Department of Theatre Arts [log in to unmask] Wright State University office (937) 775-4581 or 3072 Dayton, OH 45435-0001 USA facsimile (937) 775-3787 "The universe was once conceived almost as a vast preserve, landscaped for heroes, plotted to provide them the appropriate adventures. The rules were known and respected, the adversaries honorable, the oracles articulate and precise as the directives of a six-lane parkway. Errors of weakness or vanity led, with measured momentum, to the tragedy which resolved everything. Today, the rules are ambiguous, the adversary is concealed in aliases, the oracles broadcast a babble of contradictions." --- Maya Deren, from her notes for *At Land* ---- To sign off SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]