Useless Original Air Date

So you actually think that there should be some AT&T employee sitting around typing in the information onto the guide?  What would the qualifications be?  How much would it pay?  Would there be vision and dental?

I may just have to punch up my resume.

Please show us some (repeatable) example programs where the original air date is wrong.  9 years with uverse and I don't remember any instances (of course I'm getting old and don't remember what happened yesterday, but that's another story) unless for some reason the broadcaster decides to make some last minute changes for various reasons.

As for not supplying the original air date then the dvr interprets the absence of original air date as first run!  If you are recording series, first run only, you will end up recording all the repeats of the show which is the same as not specifying first run at all. 

There's a example of this if you scheduled recording of some of the Sci channel ([1]258) previous series first run like "How It's made".  These kind of series show up in the schedule starting about the following Monday.  The Sci channel doesn't supply the original air date.  Consequently the dvr schedules them for record even if you specified first run.  This floods the scheduling potentially introducing conflicts and making it hard to see what actually is scheduled the following week.   Fortunately Sci figures this out by the next Sunday so all of those old shows disappear.  But it does illustrate the first run info is needed if you record that way and you loose that function if att decides to omit it and not use that information. 

Note TitanTV shows exactly the same info for the Sci channel as uverse but they may be using the same grid provider as uverse, I don't know. So it could be att's grid provider or it could be the Sci channel that's at fault.  But the bottom line is, to repeat, if the original air date is omitted, the dvr treats it as first run making trying to record first run impossible if first run is really what you want to do.  And if you argue that they could omit the info but still use the flag internally then that will lead to user confusion because there would no explicit feedback to determine what or why something should being recorded.

I rarely see an incorrect "original air date".  It does happen, and since it is automated metadata... the problem begins there.. with the broadcasting channel, not ATT.  I most often see this with re-runs on The Discovery Channel where an episode of something clearly is a re-run but the information display for the episode claims it to be a new broadcast episode.  This is clearly an issue with the network.. not ATT as it is the networks that code that information in.  I actually think this may be deliberate to try to get more DVR recordings captured by viewers (who have set recording to only show new broadcasts, and no reruns).

I just asked i similar question but yes i think you're right. I only see this with discovery. Discovery channel had gone insanely far down hill it's not even real. I would rather they dismantle than become another trashy channel with ONLY stupid horribly scripted reality tv. Trying to get dvrs to grab more reruns is just so desperate and needy. Even if i watch the rerun, i skip every commercial. Very strict about it too, advertising is cancer.