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iCalendar and the Electronic Programme Guide



Hi everyone!
 
One application that vCalendar and iCalendar haven't touched on is using it as part of an electronic programme guide for radio and TV broadcasters or for transporting information regarding broadcasts over any transport protocol.
 
Applications include: a TV station running a Web-based programme guide; people sending detalis about "must-watch" TV shows to others via e-mail or newsgroups and topic-specific Web sites pointing to shows discussing the topic being shared on the Web site.
 
A broadcast could be specified as:
BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
BEGIN VEVENT
UID:19970323T120000Z-000000@GTV9
CATEGORY:TV-BROADCAST
DTSTART:19970323T180000+1100
DURATION:PT30M
LOCATION:GTV 9 (Broadcaster call sign)
SUMMARY:National Nine News (Programme title)
END VEVENT
END VCALENDAR
 
The only problem is that LOCATION could be regarded as being ambiguous, because the channel name would also be the broadcaster's name.
 
Broadcasts could have the CATEGORY property being referred to as RADIO-BROADCAST or TV-BROADCAST appropriate to the show, and the LOCATION being a machine-readable / human-readable identifier for the broadcaster such as the broadcaster's call sign.
 
I hope that you could look at this issue as part of the standard,
 
With regards,
 
Simon Mackay