Dear EastEnders Fans,

You asked, and Channel 12 has listened: EastEnders is moving to an earlier time!

After we air an episode in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, June 27th, EastEnders will no longer be aired at midnight.

We will take one week off. Then, starting on Sunday, July 5th, EastEnders will move to its new time: two back-to-back episodes on Sunday nights from 10pm to 11pm.

You will not miss a single episode! You will see the two episodes that the BBC provides Channel 12 each week!

So, pour yourself a cuppa or raise a pint at an earlier time, starting July 5th!

Cheers!

Update:

I would like to answer several questions that have been received from our informal “KBDI EastEnders Fan Club:” 

Q.  Why don’t you continue airing EastEnders five days a week?

A.  KBDI-Channel 12 receives only two episodes each week from BBC. We had a backlog for awhile and that’s why we aired it every day. Now that we’re getting caught up, we will air the two episodes that they give us each week. BBC is the distributor and they make the decision about how many episodes are distributed to licensees.

Q.  Why are your episodes years behind?

A.  Again, our ability to broadcast EastEnders is lashed directly to the BBC’s release of episodes via satellite this side of the Atlantic. Once the BBC broadcasts an episode of EastEnders in the U.K., they wait to release episodes into the U.S.  For example, the episodes coming off of the satellite this Monday and Tuesday apparently were broadcast overseas back in 2003. Unfortunately, this is the BBC’s choice, and completely out of our control.

Q.  If you were able to air five days a week before, why don’t you air five days a week now? And, why don’t you repeat episodes?

A.  The BBC feeds 2 episodes almost weekly (104 per year) for our use. In exchange, we pay more than $8000.00 per year for the broadcast rights to air each episode once. Since our initial decision to carry the series on KBDI back in 1985, we had gradually fallen further and further behind the BBC’s 2 per week schedule. This created technical and thematic problems.

From a technical viewpoint, shelves and shelves were piled high with outdated and nearly extinct tapes. (Do you still listen to 8 tracks and audio cassettes? Most of TV isn’t done on tape anymore either.) On this almost vanished format, EastEnders queued up for their place in the schedule. From a content viewpoint, combining the BBC’s delay with ours yielded absurd references to Margaret Thatcher (in office as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom until 11/28/1990) even though Prime Minister Thatcher had not only been succeeded by John Major, but also by Tony Blair by our broadcast date.

You may recall that in September of 2007, we implemented a temporary scheduling shift to five times a week at midnight to attempt to catch up.  Now we have caught up. The episode that will be shown tonight came off of the satellite feed on June 8th – 11 days ago.  Next Friday’s won’t be recorded until the afternoon of Tuesday, June 23rd – 3 days before air.  You can see that this pattern is unsustainable; we simply cannot continue to play out 5 while receiving 2.

Q.  Why don’t you move it to 12.2 for an even better viewing time?

A.  Until cable and satellite providers carry all of our channels, only a fraction of viewers can watch the great documentary programming you mention on 12.2. A slightly larger fraction of viewers are able to enjoy the fantastic 12.3’s MHz Worldview international programming.  Moving EastEnders to 12.2 would mean that 85% of our viewers could not watch the series.

Q.  Why are you changing to 10 p.m. on Sunday? It’s not a good time for me.

A.  It’s not possible to select a time that works for all of our viewers.  If 10 p.m. on Sunday isn’t a good viewing time for you, we hope that you will be able tape the episodes for viewing at a more convenient time.

Q.  My sister in Florida is getting Eastenders and it is about 2 years ahead of us...and my mom in New York is about 1 year ahead. Is Denver ever going to catch up!?!

A.  With our past backlog, it’s plausible that viewers in other locations were ahead of us in the past.  Since we are now catching up with PBS’ BBC feed, we now should be on the same timeframe.  

Q.  I’m glad you have my name as an EastEnders viewer and am curious about others you might have on a list. Have you ever thought about bringing together EastEnders viewers to an event?  I would enjoy meeting other EE fans.

A.  Yes, this is something we’ve thought about.  Stay tuned. I am a relatively new EastEnders fan.  If you would like to help in the planning of such an event, please let me know.