# Dayparting one TV: breakfast, lunch and dinner on the same screen

> One screen, four menus, and nobody standing at the television at eleven in the morning. A worked cafe day with real hours, then the four things that decide whether it genuinely runs itself: gaps, the handover minute, clashes, and the two things that are allowed to air over the plan.

Source: https://channelos.tv/academy/dayparting-a-day
Published: 2026-10-29
Track: Make it run itself
Lesson 2 of 4
Plan: Solo and up
Time: about 15 minutes
Author: The ChannelOS team

**Dayparting means giving each part of the day its own show on one channel, so the screen changes itself at the minute you set rather than when somebody remembers. In ChannelOS you add a show to a channel with a start time, an end time and a repeat rule, and a screen tuned to that channel follows it. Channels and scheduling start on the Solo plan.**

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## The short version, in 6 steps

1. Open Channels, pick the channel your screen is tuned to, and check the weekday tabs above the timeline.
2. Press Add show, choose the breakfast show, and set Start time to 07:00 and End time to 11:00.
3. Under Repeat choose Weekly, then press the Weekdays preset so it runs Monday to Friday.
4. Press Add show again for lunch, afternoon and evening, each one starting at the hour the one before it ends.
5. Switch to the Saturday tab and add the weekend show with Repeat set to Weekly and the Weekends preset.
6. Read the day back on the timeline and look for any band of hours with nothing in it.

---

Eleven in the morning is when it falls apart. Somebody has to remember the board, and that somebody is serving a queue, so the breakfast prices are still up at lunch, the evening board goes on at four because that is when a shift starts, and by Sunday nobody has touched it at all. A board that is wrong at the hour people read it is a board they stop reading.

**Dayparting fixes that by giving each part of the day its own show on one channel, so the screen changes itself at the minute you set.** You add a show with a start time, an end time and a repeat rule, and a screen tuned to that channel plays whichever show covers the current minute. Channels and scheduling start on the **Solo** plan: $5 per screen per month billed annually ($60 a year), or $6 monthly. A free screen can hold a show but not a timetable, and it carries a ChannelOS banner that opens into a full ChannelOS slide for about 30 seconds every couple of minutes.

## How do I show a different menu at different times?

Here is a four-block cafe day with real hours. Four is not a rule, only what this example splits into:

| Daypart | Hours | What is on | Repeat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | 07:00 to 11:00 | Breakfast board | Weekly, **Weekdays** |
| Lunch | 11:00 to 15:00 | Lunch menu | Weekly, **Weekdays** |
| Afternoon | 15:00 to 18:00 | Coffee and cake | Weekly, **Weekdays** |
| Evening | 18:00 to 22:00 | Evening board | Weekly, **Weekdays** |
| Weekend brunch | 09:00 to 16:00 | Brunch board | Weekly, **Weekends** |

To build it:

1. Open **Channels** and pick the channel your screen is tuned to. The timeline runs 12am to 12am, with weekday tabs across the top: **M T W T F S S**.
2. Press **Add show**. The dialog puts your shows on the left and the timing on the right: a **Date**, an **Airing** group with **Start time** and **End time** (plus 20 min, 30 min, 1 hr and 2 hr chips), and **Repeat**.
3. Set 07:00 to 11:00, then under **Repeat** choose **Weekly** and press the **Weekdays** preset. Confirm with **Add show**.
4. Repeat for lunch, afternoon and evening. Start each one at the hour the one before it ends.
5. Switch to a weekend day and add the brunch show with **Weekly** and the **Weekends** preset.

Once a block is down, drag it along the day to move it, or its edges to resize. If you are starting from nothing, creating a channel from the **Café Day** template drops three blocks across a Monday to Saturday week for you to drag onto your own hours, which beats an empty timeline. It needs one show of that shape to exist first, or it arrives empty: every seeded block points at a real show. The three repeat modes are the lesson before this one, [what airs and when](/academy/schedule-what-airs-and-when).

![A ChannelOS channel timeline with the day split into blocks](/shots/channels.webp)

## Can I schedule weekdays and weekends differently?

That is what the weekday squares are for. A weekend is often a different shape of day rather than a shifted copy of a Tuesday: brunch runs 09:00 to 16:00 and straddles the hours that are breakfast and lunch on a weekday.

Those two sets of blocks do not fight, because a clash is only a clash on a date both of them actually air on. A **Weekdays** block and a **Weekends** block never share one, so the two plans sit on the same channel with completely different hours. Decide the evening block deliberately: set that one to **Every day** if it should run on Saturday too.

## What does the screen show at six in the morning, before anything is scheduled?

The worked day above does not answer this, and it is what puts a dark TV in a window: blocks from 07:00 to 22:00 leave nine unscheduled hours.

Two possible answers, depending on how the channel was made:

- **The channel has an always-on show.** The timeline shows **Always on** followed by the show name, and it fills every hour nothing else covers. A channel created from the **Café Day**, **Retail Floor** or **Events** template is given one, pointed at the same show its blocks use.
- **The channel has none.** A channel created as **Blank** has no fallback, and nor does a template channel created before any show of its shape existed. An unscheduled hour then resolves to nothing and the TV reads **No show** on a dark screen. The schedule list names the gap in words, as Nothing scheduled followed by the hours it covers.

A cafe that closes at ten probably wants the screen dark overnight; a lobby wants a fallback. Decide it rather than discovering it at six in the morning. If the screen is meant to be on every hour, [running a screen 24 hours a day](/academy/run-a-screen-24-7) is the next lesson.

## What happens at the exact minute of a handover?

A block's end time is exclusive, so 11:00 belongs to lunch and not to breakfast. That is why each block starts at the hour the one before it ends: 07:00 to 11:00 followed by 11:00 to 15:00 leaves no hole and is not read as an overlap.

So you never need a minute of daylight between two blocks, and should not leave one. An 11:00 to 11:01 gap is a real gap, and for those sixty seconds the screen falls back to the always-on show or to **No show**.

## Why will it not let me put a show over another one?

Because one minute resolves to one show, and two shows of the same kind over the same minutes would mean one of them silently never airs. Rather than pick a winner by accident the confirm is refused and the clash is named: which show already airs, at which hours, on which day, and whether to move the start, shorten the slot or pick another day. The pending block turns red on the day strip.

Two things are deliberately **not** clashes, and both are allowed:

- **A takeover.** A cut-in overlays the schedule for as long as it runs and then hands the channel back, with nothing to undo afterwards. It is the intended way to put something over the plan for twenty minutes. Starting one is gated a step past Solo, on **Pro**: $8 per screen per month billed annually, or $10 monthly. That has its own lesson, [cutting in without losing the plan](/academy/live-takeover).
- **A dated show over the weekly plan.** A show scheduled on a specific date outranks the weekly block underneath it, which is how a bank holiday menu or a one-day promo works. You get an information note naming which one wins rather than a refusal.

## When dayparting is the wrong answer

Four cases where the timetable is not what you need.

- **The day never changes.** If the board says the same thing at eight in the morning and eight at night, push one show to the screen and stop. A schedule with one block in it is maintenance for no benefit.
- **You need it on the free plan.** Channels and scheduling are a Solo feature and the gate is real: a free workspace can pair a screen and air a show, but cannot build a timetable. Without it the alternative is one show on the screen, changed by hand.
- **Two cities on one channel.** A channel's hours are wall-clock in that channel's own timezone, captured when the channel was created. One channel is one clock, so a second location in another timezone wants its own channel. Sharing one channel across many screens in a single timezone is covered in [managing many screens with channels](/blog/manage-many-screens-with-channels).
- **The trigger is not the clock.** Dayparting answers what time it is. It does not answer whether the kitchen has run out, or whether it is raining. Marking a dish out is a control on the board itself, not a schedule entry.

## Build the week once, then you are only ever editing a show

That is the whole return on the fifteen minutes. Once the blocks are down the hours are settled, and changing what the screen says is editing the lunch show, which every tuned screen picks up by itself.

So block out your real hours on paper first, closing time included, then open the channel and put the first two blocks down. Breakfast and lunch are enough to tell you whether the rest of the day is worth doing today.

## Frequently asked questions

### How do I show a different menu at different times?

Put each menu on the same channel with its own start and end time. On the channel page press Add show, pick the show, set Start time and End time, and choose a Repeat rule. A screen tuned to that channel plays whichever show covers the current minute, so the breakfast board comes down at eleven whether or not anyone is in the building.

### Can one screen run a breakfast and a dinner menu?

Yes, and that is the normal case. One screen tunes into one channel, and a channel can hold as many blocks as the day has parts. A cafe day might split into four: breakfast, lunch, afternoon and evening. You are not paying per menu or per show, only per screen, so splitting one day into four boards costs nothing extra.

### What is dayparting?

Dayparting is a term borrowed from broadcast scheduling. It means dividing the day into named parts and giving each part its own programming, so a breakfast audience and an evening audience see different things on the same channel. On a screen it is the difference between a board somebody swaps by hand and a timetable that changes itself.

### Can I schedule by weekday and weekend?

Yes. Repeat has three modes: Once, Weekly and Date range. Weekly carries weekday squares with one-tap presets for Weekdays, Weekends and Every day, so a Monday to Friday block and a separate Saturday and Sunday block live on the same channel. They never fight, because a clash is only a clash on a date both of them actually air on.

### What does the screen show at an hour with nothing scheduled?

It depends on whether the channel has an always-on show. A channel created from the Café Day, Retail Floor or Events template is given one, shown on the timeline as Always on followed by the show name, and that fills every gap. A channel created as Blank has none, and nor does a template channel made before any show of its shape existed, so an unscheduled hour resolves to nothing and the TV reads No show on a dark screen.


## Next lesson

[Running a screen 24 hours a day, 365 days a year](https://channelos.tv/academy/run-a-screen-24-7)


## Further reading

- https://channelos.tv/blog/manage-many-screens-with-channels
- https://channelos.tv/blog/create-show-schedule-channel-pair-screen
- https://channelos.tv/blog/digital-menu-board-design


The whole curriculum: https://channelos.tv/academy and https://channelos.tv/academy.md