Last night's LAST WEEK TONIGHT broadcast overrunning, missing ending!

[JonD1492]

Hi,

I'm trying to contact Sky about this, as it keeps happening, and it's a blinking annoying situation.  I love LAST WEEK TONIGHT WITH JOHN OLIVER (LWT...), yet last night (Monday 18th Aug 2025), all three showings of the episode overran their alloted time-slots, because the Sky TV schedulers are NOT allowing enough time for the programme.

Fans of LWT... know that the show's episodes are normally around 40-minutes long, and thus in a 45-minute time-slot, and only one ad break, the episodes fit fine.  However, some weeks the episodes are much, much longer - as last night's one was.  Without ads, the episode ran to 50-minutes.  You can't fit a 50-minute show, into a 45-minute time-slot, and also add in a single, 5-minute-long ad break as well.

So whoever does the scheduling at Sky, needs to fix this issue!  LWT's episodes vary in length.  As Sky gets the show, they need to be making sure that the show can be correctly fitted into the allocated time-slot, and NOT have the show overrun the slot, as it then means anyone recording it on their Sky Q box, like I do, misses the end.  I don't want to be told to watch it on Catch-Up, as that's not the point.  I want to keep my off-air recordings for posterity, and also so I can rewatch them at any time. (And yes, I know a Sky Q box could die at any moment, and I'd lose these recordings, but - again - that's not the point!)

Please can Sky make sure that:
1 - Episodes can be fully broadcast in their allocated time-slots, with additional time for the single ad break.
2 - Stop assuming all episodes are 40-minutes, as they aren't, and they vary in length, every week!
3 - Please make sure the Sky schedules (for both Sky Comedy 114 and Sky Showcase 107) are amended accordingly, so that episodes don't keep overrunning their allocated slots, and recordings miss the ending.  Moreso, when episodes are only broadcast on the Monday night, and then there are no subsequent repeats!

And before anyone else says, yes, I've also contacted Sky about this issue, and am awaiting their response.  But my reason for posting here is to make sure others are aware of this situation too.  Viewers are paying a lot of money to Sky, and this is my absolute favourite show on TV.  I want to make sure I can see and watch it fully, when I want to.  After all, that's one of the reasons I chose Sky Q over Sky Glass.

[Mr+Ripley]

  @JonD1492  Is it possible for you to record the following programme after LWT? That way, the end of LWT should be recorded as part of the beginning of whatever show is next on. Not an ideal situation, I know, & I can see you would rather have the whole show in one recording, but at least it's something.

  You said you've contacted Sky. Did you use this email address to do so: ViewerR@Sky.UK

[JonD1492]

Hi Mr+Ripley,

I can record the show after this, but I shouldn't be having to do that.  I'm still (old enough?) to remember when Videoplus started, and the concept of shows overrunning or recordings failing due to adjusted timeslots was going to be a thing of the past.  The Videoplus codes would make sure your recordings started and ended with the starting and ending of the show itself, regardless of whether the show started 5-minutes early or 20 minutes late.

Then Sky Plus came along, and we could all manually add a few minutes to the start and finish times, meaning we'd allow extra time for our recording starting early/overruning.

Now we have Sky Q, and we're back to having to rely on incompetent schedulers and programme beginning and endings get missed again.

So much for modern technology!

I did e-mail Sky, but got zero response back from them, despite assurances they'd reply within 3 working days.  Waste of time!

[ozsat]

What is needed is an 'extra padding' option which can be controlled by the user.  Wait, they used to have one.

The SkyQ system expect tv schedules to be 100% accurate or if there are changed mid-programme it will update live.

This is all possible but many channels simply don't use it - or don't use it correctly.

[Chrisee]

@JonD1492 you can report the issue to Sky's viewer relations team who can pass your view onto the schedulers by emailing them at viewerR@sky.uk.