Watching Dead: The Walking Dead DVR Fiasco

Perhaps you’ve heard of a little program called The Walking Dead?

It just happens to be the most popular program on television.

And one of the reasons it is the most popular program on television is that no cast member is safe from elimination. You really don’t know from week to week who’ll make it to the next episode.

Thus, episode ending cliffhangers, shockers, plot changers, and spoilers of the highest order occur during the very last few seconds of the various episodes. So, DVR times would be kind of important, wouldn’t they?

Planning for little delays in timing that might cut off the recording, leaving thousands of plot-hungry Walking Dead fans bereft of the cataclysmic plot-changing series-defining moment they’d intended to record? That’s what we do.

We’re ever-vigilant so that missing out on the precious last minutes of a show—especially a show like this—doesn’t happen. Because we’re fans ourselves, we know what that kind of thing can cause.

Frustration. Anguish. Despair. Confusion.

LIKE HAPPENED THIS PAST SUNDAY NIGHT TO THOUSANDS OF WALKING DEAD VIEWERS. THOUSANDS. (Those are zombie horde-like numbers.) And they all missed a CRUCIAL plot and season changing moment in the dying (no pun intended) seconds.

Now at FYI, a system is in place with our clients to “buffer” both ends of a DVR recording with a little extra at the front and back. You know, just to make sure. Our clients like the idea of making sure. And, we’re right there with them.

Because we’re not just dishing out the very best entertainment information & rich media content in the world. We’re thinking about the ways people use our data. Always.

Including not just giving the start and stop times of a program, but engaging in an informed discussion with our clients to prevent moments our Walking Dead fan friends have just endured.

When you have TV-centric, show savvy editors, clients experience a more informed approach to entertainment data that presupposes programming issues affecting DVR recordings. In other words, we think about this stuff in advance.

The takeaway? When the zombie apocalypse comes, it would be nice to have a DVR filled with fully-recorded programs to help pass the time away.

So make sure your service provider uses FYI data—just ask. If they do, you'll have a far greater chance of seeing all the shows on your DVR, recorded all the way to the very ending, when the zombie apocalypse happens.