TV's

[thepheebster]

Does anyone know what the little black and white thing in the top right corner of the screen when a programme is on  is for?

[madnbad]

if it is on the right hand side it means there is a break comming up usually on channel 3

[andy hughes]

Because commercial TV stations sometimes run different programmes from each other, they need to co-ordinate the running of adverts, which are usually paid for on a nationally running format. For this reason, the little box' signal is issued to all the stations simultaneiously, advising them that the ads. are due to run in 60 seconds. This allows the ads to run as agreed bgy all statiouns simultaneiously. Most digital TV's don;t show this symbol anymore - it may have been superceded by more hi-tech signalling.

[alex1047]

Further to Andy's answer, you only tend to see the 'cue-dot' (as it's known) during live programmes these days - as due to their nature, the precise timings for the ad-breaks aren't known in advance. During pre-recorded programmes the network will be told in advance exactly when the ads will happen. This is unless there's an unexpected change to the schedule such as a newsflash or over-running sports event, in which case the cue-dot may appear during recorded shows. Generally it's smaller nowadays, so on some TVs it disappears off the edge of the screen so you can't see it - although it's definitely still used.