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Nov. 29th, 2015
So here is my evidence that BBC America sped up the broadcast of "Heaven Sent" to fit more ads in. The math was done via me checking DVR times on my broadcast, and checking that against some spot-checked points in the UK broadcast that I got from someone with access to that feed.
The spot-checks:
UK broadcast total length from start to end of episode content: 53:00
UK broadcast length from start of content to start of opening credits: ~2:17
BBC America broadcast total length (including commercials) from start of content to end of episode content: ~59:10
BBC America broadcast length from start of content to start of opening credits: ~2:11
BBC America commercial break total time: 8:32 (2:21, 2:05, 2:01, 2:05)
I admit 8:32 of ads for an hourlong spot is actually pretty short time for commercials for the US: generally it's more like 12 minutes or more. But there is still some discrepancy.
The BBCA broadcast including commercials is ~6:10 longer than the UK content. There are 4 commercial breaks that total 8:32 minutes. So where are the extra 2 minutes 22 seconds? The timing of the opening scene to the first strain of music for the opening credits is 6 seconds faster for the US broadcast. If you extrapolate it out, that is an approximate 5% speed-up for the episode -- for every 60 seconds of the UK broadcast, the US broadcast is 57 seconds. If that rate is applied to the whole 53 minutes of content, then BBCA can play that 53 minutes in 50:21, leaving an extra 2 minutes and 39 seconds for ads. Since we are only 2:22 missing time (approximately 50:38 for the BBCA content run-time), either they didn't speed it up at that 5% rate the whole time, or my estimation error is adding up. But it's definitely sped up.
ETA: D also says that the frame rates for NTSC (north american) and PAL (europe) broadcasts are different; NTSC has more frames per second. But those frame rates if used natively (29.97 fps for NTSC vs 25 fps for PAL) would play a 53 minute PAL video in 44 minutes on the NTSC frame rate. So BBCA has definitely slowed down the video from the native north american frame rate since it played in about 50:38 all told. Which means they can control this and probably chose to speed it up purposefully.
The spot-checks:
UK broadcast total length from start to end of episode content: 53:00
UK broadcast length from start of content to start of opening credits: ~2:17
BBC America broadcast total length (including commercials) from start of content to end of episode content: ~59:10
BBC America broadcast length from start of content to start of opening credits: ~2:11
BBC America commercial break total time: 8:32 (2:21, 2:05, 2:01, 2:05)
I admit 8:32 of ads for an hourlong spot is actually pretty short time for commercials for the US: generally it's more like 12 minutes or more. But there is still some discrepancy.
The BBCA broadcast including commercials is ~6:10 longer than the UK content. There are 4 commercial breaks that total 8:32 minutes. So where are the extra 2 minutes 22 seconds? The timing of the opening scene to the first strain of music for the opening credits is 6 seconds faster for the US broadcast. If you extrapolate it out, that is an approximate 5% speed-up for the episode -- for every 60 seconds of the UK broadcast, the US broadcast is 57 seconds. If that rate is applied to the whole 53 minutes of content, then BBCA can play that 53 minutes in 50:21, leaving an extra 2 minutes and 39 seconds for ads. Since we are only 2:22 missing time (approximately 50:38 for the BBCA content run-time), either they didn't speed it up at that 5% rate the whole time, or my estimation error is adding up. But it's definitely sped up.
ETA: D also says that the frame rates for NTSC (north american) and PAL (europe) broadcasts are different; NTSC has more frames per second. But those frame rates if used natively (29.97 fps for NTSC vs 25 fps for PAL) would play a 53 minute PAL video in 44 minutes on the NTSC frame rate. So BBCA has definitely slowed down the video from the native north american frame rate since it played in about 50:38 all told. Which means they can control this and probably chose to speed it up purposefully.