TV Shows - filming vs airing time

[graychalk]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone here might know the time discrepancy between when a TV show episode is aired vs when they were filmed (preferably for reality TV, game shows, or competitions)?

I googled this, but most information I came across were for TV series and sitcoms, and the time seems to vary anywhere between 2-6 weeks. If I'm understanding it correctly, it seems the early episodes were filmed earlier but the latter episodes may have a shorter time discrepancy. Also, the time has been shortening in modern days as opposed to back in the old days.

What I'm curious about is whether this applies to reality TV or reality game shows. Does anyone know anything about this?

ETA: Or shows that involve the audience or fans to vote for contestants (along the lines of Dancing with the Stars but not completely live?)

Comments

[silveradept]

It depends on the show. For shows that use "and now everyone's back!" twists, I suspect the entire block is filmed in advance, so I suspect any time a player makes a comment that might indicate what time it really is, it gets edited around.

Syndicated shows probably also have a block or two taped in advance - although in those cases, the host is often aware of what the air date is so they can make timely comments about the time of the year. The available cushion may fluctuate based on the game and whether bad things happen, like sick hosts or competitors, but I suspect there's some ideal amount of lead time wanted.

[graychalk]

Those are helpful things to consider (especially the sick hosts and competitors reminder), thank you! The type of show I'm looking at is probably not going to be a syndicated one and likely can't be completely filmed in advance either as portions of it would rely on audience/fans vote (I forgot to mention that in my post). It's looking like a half-half kind of thing at the moment.

[silveradept]

Well, then there's the model that The Voice and other reality competitions use, which is basically that any block of the show that doesn't result from or directly involve audience participation is filmed completely in advance and only the live portions are done at time they need to broadcast.

Your host would need to be good at stretching or compressing to hit your time marks, and there might need to be someone with the sine wave for the seven second delay if needed. For someone like Carson Daly, with years of experience working TRL on MTV, no sweat. For someone else, maybe not so easy.