Weekend Viewers, Close Gaps & Scheduling Improvements
Weekends just became a lot more important in TV Station Tycoon.
Saturday and Sunday audiences now follow their own viewing habits, with larger audience pools, different peak hours, and unique genre preferences. At the same time, the Scheduling workspace has received several quality-of-life improvements, including Close Gaps, a new timeline scrubber, smarter cover visibility, and better library scrolling.
📺 Weekend Audiences Are Now Different
Viewers no longer behave exactly the same every day of the week.
Saturday now builds toward the biggest viewing period of the week, with audience availability rising throughout the day and reaching up to +50% during prime time between 20:00–22:00.
Saturday overall offers roughly 24% more available viewers than a normal weekday.
Sunday has its own curve, with stronger daytime and early-evening viewing. Audience availability reaches up to +45% during prime time, while late-night viewing drops as people prepare for the next work week.
Sunday provides roughly 19% more available viewers across the full broadcast day compared with a weekday.
Weekday behavior remains unchanged.
🎬 Weekend Viewers Prefer Different Genres
More viewers doesn't automatically mean every program performs better.
Weekend audiences now have their own genre preferences.
Saturday favorites include:
Kids: +15%
Sports: +12%
Movies: +10%
Reality: +8%
Entertainment / Variety: +8%
Sunday favorites include:
Comedy / Family: +12%
Sports: +12%
Movies: +8%
Documentaries: +6%
Kids: +5%
News also receives an additional +8% bonus on Sunday evenings from 18:00–22:00.
These bonuses stack with existing daypart modifiers.
That means putting the right genre into the right weekend time slot can now make a significant difference. A major Sports broadcast during Saturday prime time, for example, benefits from both the larger Saturday audience and the weekend Sports bonus.
🏆 Rival Stations Follow the Same Rules
Weekend bonuses are not exclusive to the player.
Every AI-controlled rival station now uses the same weekend audience curves and genre preferences.
If a competitor builds a strong Saturday lineup around Sports, Movies, or Kids programming, they can take advantage of the same larger audience you can.
Your competitors now react to the weekly calendar too, making weekend scheduling an important part of climbing — or defending your position on — the leaderboard.
📊 Weekend-Aware Scheduling Forecasts
Scheduling forecasts now use the same audience calculations as the live broadcast simulation.
When planning a Saturday or Sunday lineup, projected viewer bars automatically account for:
Weekend audience availability
Weekend genre preferences
Existing daypart bonuses
Program characteristics
Other existing viewer modifiers
A Sports program scheduled for Saturday night should therefore show a noticeably stronger forecast than the same broadcast on a normal weekday.
You'll also see a small Saturday Audience or Sunday Audience indicator while planning weekend schedules.
↔️ New Timeline Scrubber
Navigating a full broadcast day is now much easier.
A new horizontal timeline scrubber has been added underneath the Scheduling timeline.
Drag the slider to quickly move between morning, afternoon, prime time, and late-night programming without repeatedly scrolling across the entire schedule.
The scrubber and timeline stay synchronized in both directions:
Scroll the timeline → the slider follows
Drag the slider → the timeline moves
This works on both desktop and mobile layouts.
⚡ Close Gaps
We've also added one of the most requested scheduling quality-of-life tools:
Close Gaps
One click automatically moves programs left to eliminate unused airtime between broadcasts.
The system preserves:
Program order
Episode order
Runtime
Advertisement settings
Content identity
Season-premiere bonuses
Pinned recurring programs and Live Events remain fixed in place and act as anchors.
Programs around those anchors will compact toward them without moving the protected broadcasts.
Before applying the change, a confirmation window tells you how many programs will move and how much empty airtime will be removed.
No more manually dragging a dozen programs just to remove a few gaps.
🖼️ Smarter Timeline Covers
Program covers now automatically adapt to the amount of available space.
Large timeline blocks continue displaying full artwork.
Smaller blocks prioritize useful scheduling information instead:
Wide blocks: Cover + full program information
Medium blocks: Text-first layout with genre/type information
Narrow blocks: Title and broadcast time only
Covers automatically disappear when a timeline block becomes too narrow to display them cleanly.
This makes short episodes and tightly packed schedules considerably easier to read.
📚 Improved Scheduling Library
The Scheduling Library now has its own internal scroll area.
Instead of a long content list expanding the entire Scheduling workspace, you can independently scroll through programs inside the Library column.
It's a small change, but particularly useful once your station has accumulated a large catalogue of shows, movies, and episodes.
📅 Weekends Are Now Part of the Strategy
Until now, the weekly calendar had relatively little influence over how you programmed your station.
That changes with this update.
Saturday night can become one of your biggest opportunities of the week. Sunday daytime can support completely different programming strategies. Rivals are competing for those same viewers, and the genres that dominate Tuesday evening may not be the ones that dominate Saturday prime time.
Combined with the new scheduling tools, planning your weekly lineup should now be both more strategic and much faster to manage.
We're continuing to expand the simulation and improve the tools available for running your station.
Thanks for playing TV Station Tycoon!