We also hear that Man Utd beat Chelsea in a thrilling final. Shame we missed that – what with all this hard work. After the game…err…CBS, we head for NBC. They talk us though their new shows that will hit the network between September and March. We see a reel of Kings starring Ian McShane and then we’re out into the final few hours of LA sunshine before the red-eye home. Err… that is as soon we can find the valet parking guy with our car keys…

We see a couple more shows – Middle Man (about a middle man) and Samurai Girl (about a samurai girl) and have further executive presentations during which one of the Romanian buyers suddenly releases a huge, adenoidal snore. I’d blame the jet lag… That night we are invited to meet Pamela Anderson, who has a new show for E! She forces me to take photographs with her. It would be unforgivably rude to say no.

We’re shown through the beautiful historic lot to our screening room, where our aged projectionist (hunkered amongst his whirring devices) looks as though he had the studio built around him. First we watch comedy Do Not Disturb and a number of presentation reels. Then we see The Ex-List about a 33-year-old searching for love (I feel your pain, sister) and a 10-minute clip of Dollhouse, Joss Whedon’s new network show.

We left Julie and headed for Sony. They have many shows in development and a new drama for A&E called The Beast. Patrick Swayze stars as a cop who may be on the take – the swine. We are invited for dinner at the home of Warners’ head honcho, which is a grand and lavish affair. JJ Abrams is there and we end up, perhaps unexpectedly, bonding over a shared enthusiasm for Laurel and Hardy. Our US consultant Crispin (our mole, our insider) starts performing elaborate magic tricks for JJ. He now has his own show on the CW network. Only in Hollywood.

Peter Ligouri, their Entertainment Chair, was very excited about the new shows his network will be airing. First up in their schedule was Fringe from Lost creator JJ Abrams, a sort of scientific X-Files starring Joshua Jackson – the nice boy from Dawson’s Creek. Then there was Dollhouse from Joss Whedon, about a secret organisation that implants skills into their operatives. A neat trick, I thought, seeing the potential applications for some people I know…

Fox also made the biggest announcement of the week: 24 is to be the first carbon neutral production. Baffled by eco-science and green-talk, I was both impressed and puzzled. Leaving the Upfront, we were confronted by lumbering cows penned up on the street. It was either a promotional gimmick connected to Fringe… or I’d drunk too much at lunch. Or, conceivably, a combination of the two.

In the afternoon it was CBS at Carnegie Hall. Scot Craig Ferguson, who presents The Late Late Show for CBS, was our master of ceremonies. Showing a crude but commendable loyalty to the small screen, he suggested that radio is “TV for blind people who drive to work”. I suspect he also holds the world record for saying the word “awesome”. He says it a lot. That is definitely not awesome.

Show highlights included the remake of the BBC show The Worst Week of My Life and ITV’s Eleventh Hour (is there a pattern forming?). They also had The Mentalist, a new drama starring Simon Baker as a Derren Brown type who turns detective and can “read” people to solve crimes. And then there was The Greatest American Dog, about a beagle that becomes a neurosurgeon, redistributing his wealth to the poor and needy. It’s possible I’ve made the last one up.

However… there was only one new drama in the fall schedule: the remake of Life on Mars. The summer schedule included I Survived a Japanese Game Show and Wipeout… both looking like the cult classic Takeshi’s Castle. Pain and abject humiliation – the twin pillars of quality television.

Next was CW. They declared that, demographically, they’re chasing 18- to 34-year-old women. In any other context that kind of disclosure would necessitate a call to the local law enforcement agency. The presentation began with Maroon 5 playing to an audience greedily feasting on shrimp and white wine. It made it difficult to hear head honcho Dawn Ostroff so I craftily skimmed her autocue instead. (”Good afternoon everybody… move stage left… I’m Dawn Ostroff… move stage right”).

CW had some big high profile announcements in 90210 (”You want to live in the Zip, you got to be part of the code” is the tagline – with a worrying duality of meaning). They also unveiled Surviving the Filthy Rich (now called Privileged), which I felt I was very much in the process of doing.

As the seafood and Chablis continued to be gulped down by gluttonous advertisers, I made my excuses and left, picking up an absinthe lollipop that CW kindly provided as a leaving gift.

Security was tight, with a number of brisk uniforms demanding to see my underwhelming ‘credentials’. But once in, we were grinningly greeted by the orthodontic wizardry of the Deal Or No Deal ‘models’ – towering temptresses with radiant tans and red leotards, who station the numbered cases in the US version of the show. It is a very different game across the pond. They do bikinis. We do beards.

I had my photograph taken with some terrifying characters from the new Mummy film, followed by a snap with Janice Dickinson. Revisiting the pictures, it took a surprisingly forensic eye to tell them apart. If you’re reading this Janice – I’m joking. A little. After dodging the queue to meet some hulking American footballers (they are taller than me sitting down – seven foot in every direction, boxes of muscle and menace) The NBC Experience was drawing to a close. I had my yearly chat with actor Damien Lewis (”Oh yes…I remember you” he said “…you look like Ken Livingstone”. This is a familiar accusation in London – but you don’t expect it in America.) I dashed to a closing photographic session with Christian Slater and the US stars of Kath & Kim, Molly Shannon and Selma Blair.

And then, euphoric and giddy, I made my way out into the blaring streets of gridlocked New York… What an experience, I thought. But I sensed one small thing was missing at the event…what was it? Oh yes – nobody had talked about the shows…

Channel 4

The unexpected disappearance of a programme will also prompt a flurry of comments, as happened last week with the apparent disappearance of Curb Your Enthusiasm from More 4 on Monday evening. The scheduler for More 4 was happy to spend some time chatting to me about this particular incident and the joys and trials of scheduling more generally. He started by explaining that scheduling was part analysis, based on a lot of data on different audiences and their viewing patterns, and part instinct, based on being able to predict what sort of viewers would enjoy a programme before it had been transmitted.

Curb Your Enthusiasm was originally scheduled to run for 10 consecutive weeks at 10.30pm on Monday nights, as schedulers will always aim to run a series uninterrupted in the same slot. More 4 had also commissioned On That Day as part of the Iraq 5th anniversary season, and when it became clear that it was a good companion to the Nick Broomfield film Battle for Haditha, shown on Channel 4 at 9pm on Monday 17 March, a decision was taken to broadcast it in the 10.30 pm slot on More 4, so viewers could switch over to watch it immediately after Battle for Haditha. This resulted in the final two episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm being delayed for two weeks to allow for the Iraq programme and an evening of Peter Kay programmes on Bank Holiday Monday. These changes were agreed in time to publish them in all the listings, but some viewers were clearly still taken by surprise to find that another programme was in the 10.30 pm slot for those two weeks.

In some instances, a show will be commissioned at very short notice, causing schedule changes to be made after listings information has been published, as was the case with the Cutting Edge documentary Shannon Matthews: The Family’s Story broadcast at 9pm on Thursday 20 March, six days after her reappearance. This caused the start of the new season of My Name is Earl to be delayed by a week, which was also the subject of several comments and complaints this week. In these cases, the scheduler’s priority will be to rehouse the ousted programme into the nearest suitable slot and announce the new slot on air at the original transmission time.

You can’t help feeling a bit sorry for the schedulers, as they’re caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, like all broadcasters, Channel 4 likes to keep the schedule flexible, so programming stays fresh and topical, while on the other hand, schedulers have to keep the die-hard fans of so many different series happy. Every scheduler knows it is frustrating for fans not knowing exactly when their favourite shows are back on air, but equally they don’t want to get everyone’s hopes up by promising a timeslot several months in advance, just to dash them when, close to d-day, matters beyond their control mean it has to be delayed a week or so. It’s a pretty tricky balancing act.

Would you rather know what’s coming up way in advance and risk being disappointed by a delay just before launch? Or is it more exciting to be kept in suspense and then be given an exact date closer to time that’s almost certain? Let us know what you think…

My quest to find out more took me to the editorial team for acquisitions. They explained that Channel 4, like all broadcasters, is bound by the rules and regulations of Ofcom. However the policy for language and other content for pre-watershed shows is stricter for channels such as E4 and More4, because they, unlike Paramount Comedy (which is a subscription-only channel), are available free on the Freeview platform.

Free-to-air channels are, potentially, available to a broader audience during the day, including younger people, so sensitive material and content deemed inappropriate for under 15s must be removed from US shows such as Scrubs and The Simpsons. That said, the team are committed to maintaining as much of the narrative of the show as possible.

This is rarely an issue with new series. US acquisitions usually have their first showing in post-watershed slot. So, when Scrubs Series 7 airs later this spring, expect it to be shown later when the content does not need the same editing as repeats. The second showing tends to be earlier in the day – these timeslots attract the best audience, but may include youngsters so requires a pre-watershed version.

The more we talked, the more it became clear that editing TV shows is a bit of an art form. It’s a matter of balancing the timeslot, the likely audience (this also depends on the day of the week, school holidays etc), the public mood about different issues, with the importance of maintaining the storyline.

In the future, the matter may be further confused as it becomes increasingly common to watch programmes on-demand – either recorded on personal/digital video recorders or through online services such as 4oD, which could also be accessed by children. As long as Channel 4 continues to transmit programmes in a linear fashion, however, the broadcasting regulations mean that shows need to be edited for broadcasts before the watershed.

What is your view of programme editing? Do you think the industry needs to rethink this as we change our viewing habits?