Six Timing Mistakes That Throw a Live Programme Off Course

The first mistake appears in almost every draft rundown I review in the course: each segment is timed for the version of events in which the speaker arrives on cue, the slides advance on the first click and nobody pauses to think. A ten minute talk is entered as ten minutes, and the ten of them together add up to a tidy hundred. On the day, a microphone swap takes forty seconds, a welcome runs a minute over and an introduction picks up an unplanned story.

Plan for ordinary friction instead. When you time a segment, say the words aloud, walk the transitions and count the handovers between people. Speakers rarely deliver at the pace they rehearsed in their heads, so a figure taken from the draft agenda is a hope rather than a measurement. Write down both the target length and the realistic range, and let the running order show the range.

• Read scripted parts aloud with a stopwatch, not silently
• Count the walk on, the handover and the applause as part of the segment
• Record a target length and a realistic range for each item

Some learners learn about buffers and then place a single large one at the very end of the programme. That feels safe, but it only protects the closing minutes. By the time a delay reaches the final segment, the delay has already squeezed the break, shortened a Q and A and left a guest waiting in the wings for far longer than agreed.

Spread small buffers through the running order, and put them where overruns usually start: after the opening, after any segment with live questions and before a hard external point such as a stream start or a venue curfew. Two or three minutes at those joints absorb most drift. Keep them visible in the plan, labelled as buffer, so a producer can see what is available to spend and does not quietly fill the gap with one more item.

• Place short buffers after segments that tend to overrun
• Protect hard points such as stream cut-offs and venue curfews
• Label buffer time on the rundown so it is not filled by accident

Pacing is more than adding up minutes. A common error is stacking three talking-heavy segments in a row because each one fits its slot on paper. The clock is fine, yet the audience, whether in a room or on a stream, loses energy halfway through the second one, and the presenters feel it too.

Read the running order as a person sitting through it would. Alternate speaking with a demonstration, a short video, a change of voice or a change of location on the set. Put the most demanding material early enough that people still have attention for it, and leave a lighter item before a break. When you rework a plan in class, I ask learners to mark each segment with its mode, such as talk, discussion, visual or transition, and then look for runs of the same mode.

Learners often write a rundown with exactly one version: the plan. The first time a segment overruns, the team improvises, and the improvisation usually means cutting whatever is last, which is often the part the client cared about most. A programme that finishes early is handled just as badly, with presenters filling air time with unplanned remarks.

Decide before the show what can move. Mark each segment as fixed, flexible or optional, and note in the cue sheet how much it can stretch or shrink. Agree the order in which items would be trimmed, and who has the authority to call it. If a discussion runs five minutes over, the producer should already know which optional item gives up that time, and the presenter should hear the instruction in a single short sentence rather than a debate through an earpiece.

• Tag each segment as fixed, flexible or optional
• Write the order of cuts and additions in advance
• Name one person who makes the call during the show

Another trap is trusting a rehearsal time without asking what was different about the rehearsal. Run-throughs tend to be quicker than the live version because people skip repeated explanations, speak over the technical pauses and stop when something goes wrong. A segment rehearsed at eight minutes may well take ten with a real audience, real questions and real nerves.

Treat rehearsal figures as a lower bound and add a margin based on what the live version includes: audience reaction, remote guests who join with a short delay, a presenter who wants to acknowledge people in the room. If you can, time a rehearsal with the full set of transitions, including the pauses you would normally skip. Note in the production notes how each timing was produced, so whoever runs the next edition knows how far to trust it.

The last mistake is quiet: the programme ends, everyone is tired and nobody records how long each segment really took. The next rundown then starts from the same optimistic estimates, and the same overruns return in the same places.

Keep a simple record during the show. Write the planned start and the actual start for each segment, and add a line about what caused any gap of more than a minute. Within an hour of finishing, while memories are fresh, turn that into a short note attached to the rundown. Over a few events you will see patterns, such as which speakers run long or which handover always costs extra time, and your future estimates will rest on observation rather than guesswork.

• Log planned against actual start times for every segment
• Note the cause of any gap longer than a minute
• Attach the log to the production notes for the next team