Maybe I’m taking the statement too seriously, but it got me thinking about something I’ve never really understood. The real question is not why Rachel Maddow is on at 10pm but why Central and Mountain time zone’s “prime time” is one hour earlier than the two coasts. Even though I studied TV/Film at Northwestern, we never got to the answer on this one (at least not in any of my courses). Wikipedia doesn’t explain it, but Google did find a site with a plausible explanation. According to http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/331/whats-the-rationale-for-prime-time-tv-scheduling, it’s actually pretty simple. For the least cost before recording was available, shows were done live twice: once for the east coast and once for the west coast. Central time zone by default received their schedule live along with Eastern. I believe that even though it’s not stated, Mountain used to receive theirs at the same time as Central/Eastern before tape delay was perfected. I am certain that they didn’t get their signal at the same time as Pacific because that would have placed prime time too late in the day. (Read the article on the site for more details.)

In any case, it’s an old system. And as Cecil Adams concludes: “[T]hose guys in New York probably figure that people in the Central and Mountain zones are simple folk who like to rack out early after a hard day of mowing the alfalfa. In any case, we’re probably going to be stuck with the present system for the foreseeable future.”