FAQs

What is Carriage?

Carriage is the number of U.S. Public Television (PTV) channels carrying a program. Carriage is usually reported for the entire country. However, it can be segmented by day of the week, time, geography, and portions of the population. Carriage figures may grow as the queried span of the user’s date range expands. This is especially true for standalone programs, limited series or non-prime time programming.

How many channels do we have schedules for?

We have over 1100 Public Television channels in the TRAC carriage database – below is a description of each of the channel types available.

Who provides Carriage data to TRAC?

TRAC Media Services purchases listings data from TiVo – formerly ROVI/TV Guide.

How often is Carriage updated?

TRAC loads carriage data and updates daily

How far into the future can Carriage be viewed?

TRAC Media Services provides data up to 4 weeks in to the future from today’s date.

How far does Carriage go back?

Carriage can be queried going back to 10/20/2005.

My program airs soon but I see zero airings. What should I do?

If you cannot find your program title at all, please see the “Why Can’t I Find My Program?” FAQ.
If you know your program is in the database but you are not seeing any airings it may be that your program is airing more than two weeks out from today’s date. Please check back as Carriage is updated daily and the listing service, TiVo, strives for the data to be accurate two weeks out until the time of broadcast.

How does TRAC Collect Carriage from Stations?

TRAC’s Carriage database is based on television listings data from TiVo (formerly ROVI/TV Guide); the data is primarily used for online and print listings and on-screen interactive program guides. All interested parties (e.g. television stations) require the data to be accurate two weeks out until the time of broadcast. This is the guarantee that TiVo makes so interactive program guides are as accurate as possible. Since TRAC is buying this data four (4) weeks prior to broadcast, the database is dynamic where accuracy improves as we move closer to the time of broadcast. Below is the schedule update process used by TiVo. Throughout the process TRAC downloads TiVo data updates daily, beginning at four weeks from broadcast date.

• Six Weeks Out: Most channel schedules have been delivered to TiVo.
• Five Weeks Out: For each channel, the regularly scheduled programming (TiVo calls this the “framework”) is copied to the date that is going to be updated. This is a continuous cycle that repeats daily. Correct episodes are added based on the feed schedules.
• 3-4 Weeks Out: Mass editing/updating of TV channel schedules across the nation is occurring.
• Two Weeks Out: TiVo has entered all schedule updates sent by channels.
• Two Weeks until Broadcast Time: Updates are collected by TiVo and transmitted to TRAC database daily.

In four week advance data, we typically find that 20% of updates arrive between 21 and 27 days out. At 14 to 20 days from broadcast another 60% of updates arrive. Between 7 and 13 days away 15% are in and the last 5% arrive within a week before broadcast.

Since TiVo is using the prior weeks’ schedules to populate the target date, before two weeks out a user will find:

1. 1. More plays of regularly scheduled series than will actually occur.
2. 2. Fewer plays of specials and limited series than will actually occur.

Users should be mindful of these limitations when using the carriage database.

Why can’t I find my program?

There can be several reasons why you cannot find your program in the Carriage database.

• Stations have not scheduled it yet so the title has not come down from TiVo to our database.
• Your airing dates are farther in the future than 4 weeks from today’s date.
• Your date range is not inclusive of airing dates for that program so your search returns no results. Try expanding your search to a date range farther in the past and into future (if possible).
• Spelling and punctuation in the search terms are incorrect. For long titles, especially ones with punctuation, like apostrophes or colons, less is more. We suggest using a couple of key words rather than the entire title.