Film at 11

"Film at 11"[1] or "Pictures at 11"[2][3] is a US idiom from television news broadcasting, in which viewers are informed that footage of a breaking news story will be screened later that day. The word "film" in the phrase dates back to the early decades of TV news when footage was regularly recorded on film. 11 PM is the traditional time for late evening local news broadcasts in the Eastern and Pacific time zones of the United States, while the late evening news comes at 10 PM in the middle time zones (Mountain and Central).[1]

  1. ^ a b Perlman, Merrill (October 31, 2016). "Let's go to the videotape". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 24 August 2024. Other film-related idioms also hang on. You'll still hear people talking about "film at 11," which had its start in broadcast news: In a brief news update, an anchor would promote a story, promising "film at 11." Outside of news, it means "more details to come." (It was also an Eastern Time Zone-centric idiom, since local news would usually be on there at 11 pm; in other time zones, it might be 10 pm or 9 pm.)
  2. ^ Kershner, Jim (April 6, 1997). "Life of Briley". The Spokesman-Review. Spokane, WA. Retrieved 9 September 2024. Think for a moment about what "50 years in broadcasting" means. For Bob Briley, 73, it means: A career that pre-dated the existence of TV in Spokane by six years. Being a TV news anchor in the days when "pictures at 11" consisted of an Associated Press photo propped up on an easel.
  3. ^ Romano, Will (January 2, 2023). Moving Pictures: How Rush Created Progressive Hard Rock’s Greatest Record. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 81. This was a prog rock version of "Pictures at 11," or "Film at 11," an old marketing teaser designed to draw a TV audience for the late evening news.