The first weekend of November brings frosty mornings, last-minute leaf raking, the Minnesota deer opener, and tired complaints about the way we track time.
In recent years, political leaders at the state and federal levels have talked about ending the twice-annual time change and even passed some bills, but no actual change has happened. A proposal in Congress to end the time change seems to be stalled.
While the bill in Congress would essentially put the federal government on year-round daylight saving time, the National Conference of State Legislatures explains that the proposal actually leaves it up to states to decide whether they want year-round DST. States that don’t pass enabling legislation would instead be on year-round standard time, potentially creating a confusing patchwork of local times across the country.
The NCSL says Minnesota is one of 19 states that has passed legislation to enact year-round DST, if the federal bill passes. But Iowa, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin have not yet enacted such legislation, meaning, if the federal bill passes, they would be on standard time year-round unless state lawmakers take action.
Iowa has seen numerous proposals fail in recent years for both year-round daylight time and year-round standard time. One of the failed proposals would have only taken effect if all of Iowa’s neighboring states made the same change.
Pending proposals in Michigan would also have a border trigger, only enacting year-round DST if five other states make the same change.
But Minnesota’s legislation, approved as part of the 2021 budget package, has no border trigger, meaning its year-round DST would take effect even if all of its neighbors remained on standard time.
People crossing bridges between Duluth and Superior, Hudson and Lakeland, La Crescent and La Crosse, Moorhead and Fargo, and Grand Forks and East Grand Forks would have to get used to the time change.
So would TV viewers in dozens of counties both in and out of Minnesota.
Twelve Wisconsin counties and one Michigan county receive TV from Minnesota. (Minnesota is not among the five states needed to trigger DST under the Michigan proposal despite Gogebic County being in the Duluth TV market.)
Meanwhile, 21 Minnesota counties receive TV from Fargo, Sioux Falls, or La Crosse-Eau Claire. And the Rochester-Austin-Mason City market has TV stations based on both sides of the Minnesota-Iowa border.
In all, six of the seven TV markets covering Minnesota cross state lines (and the seventh, Mankato, has some viewers in Iowa).
But the more confusing factor is what would happen with TV scheduling at the national level.
Currently, network programming (except for morning shows) airs simultaneously in the Eastern and Central time zones, meaning 80% of the country sees programming at the same moment in real time. Network prime time begins at 8 p.m. New York time, or 7 p.m. Central time.
However, New York is one of those states that hasn’t enacted year-round DST, according to the NCSL list. Would the networks continue to premiere prime time based on the clock in New York, or would they follow DST, even though it would be an hour ahead of New York?
Even if New York does enact year-round DST, what about other states in the Central and Eastern time zones that don’t? Stations in those states would have to choose between airing prime time an hour earlier than it is currently seen (keeping it in real time) or delaying it by an hour to keep it in its current timeslot.
That brings us back to the Upper Midwest. Wisconsin viewers, on standard time, could potentially end up seeing network prime time from Minnesota TV stations, on daylight time, an hour earlier on their clocks than they’re used to. Meanwhile, viewers in three corners of Minnesota that are in out-of-state TV markets could end up seeing it an hour later (at least according to their clock) if TV stations chose to delay prime time to keep it in the same local timeslot.
It doesn’t appear that any of these questions have been answered because, in my daily consumption of broadcasting trade publications, I have seen no discussion about how networks or stations might respond to this possible patchwork of time changes. Perhaps everyone is assuming all states would pass the enabling legislation for year-round DST.
Here’s another factor to make things more confusing: states already have the power to opt out of daylight saving time and stay on standard time year round (see: Arizona and Hawaii). Axios Twin Cities reports that a Minnesota legislator is talking about introducing such a measure, which could cause even more confusion since the difference in time between Minnesota and other states would then depend on the season.
Maybe this is why the year-round daylight saving time bill hasn’t yet passed. Maybe political leaders know that such a change, done in a patchwork instead of uniformly, would just replace one set of complaints with another.
After all, Congress passed the CALM Act so people would stop calling them to complain about loud TV commercials.
Imagine how many complaints they’d get if “Survivor” suddenly stopped showing up on some Upper Midwest TV screens at 7:00 local time.
Disclosure: Jon Ellis is an employee of Gray Media Group. The statements and views expressed in this posting are his own and do not reflect those of Gray Media Group.