Season changed but guide didn't

[Gripweed107 4]

On Monday 9/11, my wife's (US) soap opera, General Hospital, changed seasons from Season 60 to 61 but the Emby Guide is still adding episodes on to Season 60.  The official sources that list the change are https://abc.com/shows/general-hospital.  Don't get confused because they are still using their 60th Anniversary logo; I guess they haven't gotten around to removing it yet.  The actual episode reflects the true season. See Image #1.  The other source is Hulu which is where General Hospital is delayed streamed.  See Image #2.

 

[Gripweed107 4]

Oh, you just opened a can of worms.  TVDB likes to say that they only rely on official sources but they don't.  The ABC network made a decision two years ago to change all their show's Season anniversary to a September date.  I had an email battle with ABC for close to two months over this change in policy.  General Hospital started on April 1st, 1963.  Every long term General Hospital fan (and their husband) know this.  Obviously, the anniversary should be on April 1st but there is no convincing of ABC to that now.  58 years of tradition down the drain because some executive, that probably wasn't even born when GH started, decided that all anniversaries should be in September.  TVDB still follows the April 1st date and therefore is going against its own policy that the info must come from the actual source.  I had an email battle with them as well.  I personally use TMDB with GH with other programs I use for renaming episodes and library managing.  TMDB follows ABC's episode numbering.  I should have mentioned in my original message that for my Emby Guide Data source I use USA-OTA18510.

I blame ABC for this stupid change from tradition but at the same time I blame TVDB for not following their own policy that the show source should be the primary source.  TMDB is the only one that follows the source.  Up until Monday, USA-OTA18510 also followed the ABC source (for the last 2 years).  IMDB and TVMaze both use the total number of episodes (they don't match, 15366 for IMDB and 15302 for TVMaze).  TV Guide started out earlier in the week in Season 61 but later in Season 60.  All this confusion is because ABC went against tradition.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Gripweed107
Typo

[GrimReaper 3308]

You might wanna put TMDB or TV Maze (relatively recent plugin, you can find it in Catalogue) as your top-preferred provider, Refresh Metadata and see what gives? 

Edited September 13, 2023 by GrimReaper

[Gripweed107 4]

I really don't think this is a metadata issue.  I think it is an Emby Guide Data issue.  I said that 

Quote

Up until Monday, USA-OTA18510 also followed the ABC source (for the last 2 years).

That not quite true.  It is probably longer than that to before ABC made it's anniversary date change.  I might have even been using Schedules Direct then with EPG123.  Back then when I ran into something like this I would contact Schedules Direct and they would contact Gracenote and it would be corrected.  Based on what I read here, a person named Carlo handles things like that.

My interest is in the recording of the show.  I don't see how metadata has anything to do with scheduling downloads.  I've been using Emby since it was Media Browser but I haven't had to get into the nitty-gritty all that much.  It just worked.  So, maybe you know more about this than I do but I respectfully can't see where metadata comes into this.  

[GrimReaper 3308]

Guess I misunderstood the issue you're having, thought those episodes were wrongly shown within Season 60 once recorded but it's only Guide issue then? 

[Gripweed107 4]

Yes, it is a Guide issue.  As I said, up until Monday the Emby Guide has always followed the primary source for episode information for General Hospital which is the US network ABC.  On Monday, September 11th, ABC started Season 61 (Episode 1) for GH while the Emby Guide continued on with Season 60 (Episode 250).  All I'm asking for is for someone that handles the Emby Guide to contact the information provider to have them, once again, match the primary source of the episodic information, which is the ABC network.  That someone appears to be Carlo and the information provider for the Emby Guide appears to be Gracenote.  

[Gripweed107 4]

We are now in the second week of the Emby Guide having the wrong episodic information... Why won't someone do something there?  I wrote directly to Carlo and it doesn't even look like he looked at it.  Emby's live recordings are worthless without the correct Guide information.  At least with Schedules Direct I got someone that cared about the problem and then got results.

[Gripweed107 4]

This is a copy of an email I received from Disney-ABC Customer Care on 5/9/2020 explaining about why they made their season change and that their listing found on their website/app is the only official episode information. 

##- Please type your reply above this line -## https://theme.zdassets.com/theme_assets/1226579/ccb29ad5cb70e0ecc308109eb935b80cbc3ca05b.jpg Hello again, Thank you for your patience while our team looked into this! We have found that Broadcast Communications had begun re-sequencing their seasons at different times in the year for General Hospital than what was reported to scheduling, so the past 8 years worth of episodes in our database are off (and match what you are seeing on the Internet). We have begun renumbering starting with April of this year to match the proper sequence numbers on the basis of the Season Premiere of 57 being 9/9/2019 . There is a likely chance that internet searches will now yield different answers. As such, what is online on the ABC website/app are currently correct. If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us again and we will be more than happy to help. Have a great day, Alyssa Disney-ABC Television Group Technical Support

 

As of today, September 18th, 2023, the official episode number is S61E06.  Please make this correction to the Emby Guide.

 

 

 

[ebr 14921]

8 hours ago, Gripweed107 said:

Please make this correction to the Emby Guide.

Hi.  We don't have direct control of the data.  It comes from GraceNote.  All we can do is notify them and wait for them to take care of it.  In this particular case, I can see that it may take them some time.

Thanks.

[Gripweed107 4]

I don't see why it should take a long time.  When you were MediaBrowser and I used SchedulesDirect for you and also EPG123, when I reported an inaccuracy in the Guide to SchedulesDirect, it was a one day turnaround usually.  The difference being that no one here wants to take the first step in contacting them.  Based on other messages on this forum it appears that Carlo is the Gracenote liaison.  Where is he?  Certainly not reading this forum or his emails. I'd contact Gracenote myself but their website says I can't.  See image #1 from their website at https://www.gracenote.com/company/support/video-support/.

Image #2 is found on the same page and tells how you are to contact them.

 

 

[Gripweed107 4]

You know, nevermind.  Forget it.  I just checked the Guide here as well as Zap2It; Gracenote made the change.  The wrong change but someone must have gotten to them finally to try to correct it.  But instead of today, Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023, being S61E07, they have it now as S61E11.  That means that they are saying that Season 61 started on the day after Labor Day, Sept. 5th.  It didn't, it started on Sept. 11th.  

I have a ticket in with Disney-ABC Customer Care.  I'll let them fight it out with Gracenote.

You can close this issue message thread.

[Luke 37093]

Thanks for following up ! Glad to see this is resolved.

[Gripweed107 4]

It isn't resolved yet.  I just took it out of Emby's hands because you didn't seem to want to do what a Gracenote licensee is expected to do; report incorrect information for their users to Gracenote.

Surprisingly, Disney/ABC doesn't want to contact Gracenote either.  They say it is the licensee's responsibility.  My respect for Disney/ABC is growing less and less all the time.  They don't care whether their information is correct or not.  This isn't the Mouse I grew up with.

[Carlo 4330]

On 9/13/2023 at 5:39 PM, Gripweed107 said:

I really don't think this is a metadata issue.  I think it is an Emby Guide Data issue.  I said that 

That not quite true.  It is probably longer than that to before ABC made it's anniversary date change.  I might have even been using Schedules Direct then with EPG123.  Back then when I ran into something like this I would contact Schedules Direct and they would contact Gracenote and it would be corrected.  Based on what I read here, a person named Carlo handles things like that.

My interest is in the recording of the show.  I don't see how metadata has anything to do with scheduling downloads.  I've been using Emby since it was Media Browser but I haven't had to get into the nitty-gritty all that much.  It just worked.  So, maybe you know more about this than I do but I respectfully can't see where metadata comes into this.  

Hi, Sorry for not responding sooner but I can tell you straight up front, that GraceNote does not change or re-arrange episode numbers or anything like that when the information is given to them by the networks, studios or stations.  Certain information is not permitted to be changed by them in the contracts they have to access this content. The Gracenote product really starts after the point of them receiving the basic information about the show, it's title, it's episode and dates. It takes this data and embellishes it with lots of other content such as all the graphics, posters, show or movie info as well as cast, directories, producers, etc as well as take this information and make it available through different APIs to be easy to consume as well as the big one which is making this information available to the distribution network so you can access this based on your cable, IPTV, OTA or Satellite operator. They have hands down the best data available to put together lineups for cable and local OTA broadcasts.

I only quickly read through this thread so forgive me if I got this wrong but if your issue is based on a change that ABC made to episode numbering this is going to be out of the control of what we can ask to get fixed since it's not broken.  The owner of the data can do essentially and dumb thing they want episode number wise as it's their show and they own it.  Others can simply distribute that information without changing it. Augment yes, change no.

With that said, however it seems you might be saying the guide data is wrong assuming Monday, September 11th, was the date that ABC started Season 61 (Episode 1) for GH which we still show as Season 60 (Episode 250).  Forgive me but I don't watch GH but see from a simple Google search that season 61 started on 9/5/23 and what aired on 9/11/23 was episode 5.

What you see right now S60E250 is likely cached data that hasn't been flushed but will fix itself in time. I'll test loading the data on a fresh system but first want to understand the 9/5 vs 9/11 difference.  Why do you think the season started on 9/11 vs 9/5?

Thanks,
Carlo

[Gripweed107 4]

Carlo,

In answer to your last question as to why I thought the season started on 9/11 vs 9/5 - Just look at the screen shots that I took from ABC and Hulu, they clearly showed that they believed the season for the show they produced and aired started on 9/11.

Now, sometime today, everything has changed.  I actually came here to offer my apologies and wasn't expecting your message to reply to.  I've been checking ABC, Hulu, and all the Gracenote licensed sites every day, sometimes multiple times a day.  Tonight, to my amazement, 10 days after Disney/ABC declared that GH's 61st season started on 9/11 they NOW say it started on 9/5.  Friday Sept. 22nd episode was to be S61E10 because Thursday Sept. 21st episode was S61E09.  Checking tonight, Friday's episode is listed as S61E14.  If you go to https://abc.com/shows/general-hospital?view=full you will see the change.  I guess they were lazy and only changed 9/11 and Tuesday through Friday of this week.  You need to actually click on the episode in order for it to show its episode number.

And so, I need to give you and the rest of the Emby staff and users an apology.  I never expected Disney/ABC to make this type of change so late into the game.  It is my feeling that ABC is the only source for ABC shows.  It is their shows so they should know best what episodes they broadcast.  How can they not know when their seasons start?  This is truly bizarre.  I really thought Gracenote had it wrong.  How can you go against what a network says is their season starting date and episode numbers?  In the end, Gracenote had it right.  Things are really strange with Disney/ABC lately.