When is midnight? Nomenclature question (was Re: Guatemala DST?)

[Kevin Kenny]

benc at hawaga.org.uk said:
> shifting the topic slightly, I've noticed that FM Osaka lists their
> programme times sometimes as times even later than 2400 (which I
> intuitively but perhaps incorrectly interpret as meaning tomorrow) 

It's common practice in the broadcasting industry to use "midnight
Tuesday night", "1 am Tuesday night", and so on.  In the US, the
standard (according to the company that does the Nielsen Ratings)
is to change the date at 04:59:59 local time; prior to that, it's
"Tuesday late night", after that, it's "Wednesday morning".  It's
rather a headache for the engineers that the marketeers think that
way - particularly on the nights when Daylight Saving Time goes in
or out of effect.  I've seen that done by simply ignoring the change
when it happens (at 0200 in the US), and then adjusting the schedule
at "end of broadcast day" at 0500.
--
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin KENNY   GE Corporate Research & Development
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