Time Management On TUF Live This Season

[jmose86]

Here is what I foresee as being the biggest issue with the TUF Live format and am curious to hear what anyone else thinks. Due to the Live broadcasting broadcast format, the production team is forced to have a set time to start the fight during each week's episode.
For Example if the episode starts at 9 o'clock, in order to ensure there is room for a 15 minute fight, fighter introductions, possibility of judges decision, commercials (both before, in between rounds maybe, and after the fight), and any other preplanned content; the fight is going to likely have to start at 9:30 or shortly after in order to finish by 10 o'clock.
This Live format gives me as a viewer a number of concerns. First, this time constraint only allows for the first half hour or so to cover all of the pre-taped content from that week, which will also be cut into quite a bit by commercials. This does not leave a lot of time to cover what the TUF viewers are used to watching, like choosing each matchup for the week, showcasing each fighters workout for the week and game planning with the coaches, ongoings at the house, interactions (hopefully confrontational between the 2 coaches, and the list goes on and on.
Secondly, and possibly more important is dealing with the likely event that one of the fights only lasts 30 seconds. On previous seasons in this case they would have 2 fights in one episode, But now we are stuck watching the remaining 20 minutes of the program with no pre-taped content and aside from post fight interviews or locker room scenes it could be a pretty dull episode. Either way I will watch as a fan of the show, and hope I am wrong and the time is filled in nicely, just wanted to get everyone's thoughts. (My first ever forum post, sorry if it was way too long or poorly formatted :/)

[Ash]

I don't think it'll be a huge concern, but I'm not sure. The fights being 2 rounds / 10 minutes with the optional overtime round means they could start the fight with 20 minutes left comfortably. But yeah, if a fight ends in 20 seconds, I'm not sure exactly what they do with the remaining time in the episode. I'm also not sure if FX allows them to go over their allotted time limit at all due to the live nature of the program. I guess we'll find out shortly. That reminds me though, I'm not even sure when the show comes on now.... is it Friday night every week?

[Onion]

I'm pretty sure they are 3 round fights now, no?

And yeah, Friday nights.
Also, FX let them go over by 15min on the premiere night.

I've been curious as to how they plan on filling time if a fight ends quickly. Maybe interviews with the coaches explaining what went right/wrong?

[Ash]

I'm not sure about the 3 round fights, but that'd be cool if they were.

[jmose86]

Well the fox networks are very sport friendly as dana has talked about in interviews regarding going long on programming since they switched over. The premiere went long but that is because you cant exactly narrow down 16 fights into a compact timeslot But when your talking about a series time slot every week for 13 weeks they have to have specific layout in place to finish in an hour give or take 1 or 2 minutes like any live show.

I thought they were still 10 minute fights but either way they have to allot 15 minutes for the fight in case of a sudden victory round. And all hour long shows without commercials are about 40 minutes long (ten minutes of commercials for every 30 minutes of programming). So they have to set aside the last 25 minutes for commercials and the possibility of a 15 min fight alone. Which doesn't include all the other stuff I mentioned. As for filling in time, Dana has talked about how the cameras will follow fighters into their locker rooms to get their reactions to the fight which will be the same as other seasons I guess just in real time.

[Onion]

I'm not sure about the 3 round fights, but that'd be cool if they were.

I asked Jon Anik, and to my disappointment, they are still 2 rounds with a sudden victory round if needed.

[seansloan]

I have no idea why they switched to a live format its a big gamble.Unlike Pro wrestling companies TUF was able to control the product and were able to keep the results locked up tight.They were able to focus on fighters and storylines because they knew how far these guys made it in the show.With a live show,you could focus on the completely wrong guys or find a likable guy only for him to be smashed on the first show.Its hard to have a long term plan when they have no idea what is gonna happen.I think this will be a failed experiment.

[wK78]

I have no idea why they switched to a live format its a big gamble.Unlike Pro wrestling companies TUF was able to control the product and were able to keep the results locked up tight.They were able to focus on fighters and storylines because they knew how far these guys made it in the show.With a live show,you could focus on the completely wrong guys or find a likable guy only for him to be smashed on the first show.Its hard to have a long term plan when they have no idea what is gonna happen.I think this will be a failed experiment.

I find this kinda funny. For someone who hasn't watched TUF since season one, obviously the tight control, focused stoylines did nothing for you. So to say they shoulda stayed that way and not gone live kinda ridiculous. Obviously your just not a fan, which is fine, but whatever they do is gonna be failed in your eyes.

[Onion]

Looks like it is no problem if they run over.

Jon Anik ‏ @Jon_Anik
If you're setting the DVR for 'The Ultimate Fighter Live', may want to extend record window by 30 minutes. We're likely to go long.

[jmose86]

Looks like it is no problem if they run over.

Jon Anik ‏ @Jon_Anik
If you're setting the DVR for 'The Ultimate Fighter Live', may want to extend record window by 30 minutes. We're likely to go long.

nice, thanks for the heads up. I wonder if that will become a regular thing or if they will shorten it up once they get all the kinks worked out. As a fan i'm glad they aren't forcing it into the hour timeslot at all costs. Guess we'll see tonight how the new format will look this season.