Broadcast programming

The activity of arranging or ordering (scheduling) programmes for broadcast media, most often radio and television, in accordance with a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or season-long schedule is referred to as broadcast programming.

Modern broadcasters make frequent adjustments to the scheduling of their programmes by using broadcast automation in order to grow an audience for a new show, keep an audience they already have, or compete with the shows of other broadcasters. Although the majority of programmes on broadcast television are shown once a week during prime time and once a day during other times of the day, there are occasions when exceptions are made.

At the most granular level, scheduling refers to the minute-by-minute planning of the transmission. This includes deciding what will be aired and when it will be transmitted, with the goal of making the most efficient use of airtime possible. The tactics that are used in television scheduling are intended to provide programmes with the greatest possible opportunity of attracting and maintaining an audience. They are used to give programmes to audiences at the times when those audiences are most likely to wish to watch those shows, and they are utilised to bring audiences to advertisers in the composition that is most likely to be productive for those advertisers' advertising campaigns.

This method of broadcasting is now often referred to as linear, despite the proliferation of digital platforms and services that provide non-linear, on-demand access to television programming. Since then, linear has become a retronym for this method (such as linear television and linear channels).