Gamehelpthenetworksprimetime

Overview

In The Networks: PrimeTime, each player runs a television network for four rounds. You will sign Stars, land Ads, produce Shows, and arrange those Shows in your lineup to attract viewers while keeping your network solvent.

Your final score is the total of your four round scores plus end-game bonuses. The player with the most viewers wins. Tied players share the victory.

The basic idea

Your network has three main areas:

Your lineup contains one Show in each timeslot: Daytime, Primetime, and Late Night.
Your green room holds Stars, Ads, and Network cards you have acquired but have not attached or used. There is no hand limit, and cards may remain there between rounds.
Your reruns contain Shows that have been canceled. They score again at the end of the game.

The shared market contains the Shows, Stars, Ads, and Network cards available to everyone. Cards taken from the market are not replaced during the round. A completely new market is dealt after the round ends.

Only cards in your lineup count for normal round income, expenses, and viewers. Cards waiting in your green room do not.

Setup and Pilot Season

BGA performs the physical setup automatically. Every player begins with three Starter Shows, one in each timeslot, and receives cash based on starting turn order.

Normal Pilot Setup

Each player is privately dealt four Pilot Season cards and keeps two.

Pay the costs of kept Stars and Shows.
Gain the signing bonuses of kept Ads.
Put kept Stars and Ads in your green room.
Produce any kept Pilot Shows and place them in your lineup.

Unchosen Pilot cards are removed from the game.

Simplified Pilot Setup

Each player receives two Pilot Stars and/or Ads and keeps both automatically. Pilot Shows are not used. This option is intended for a faster first game.

Playing a round

Starting with the first player, players take one action at a time in turn order. A player who passes takes no more normal turns that round. The round ends after everyone has passed.

On your turn, take one of the following actions.

Sign a Star

Choose a Star from the market, pay its signing cost, and put it in your green room. A Star cannot be attached immediately unless a card effect says otherwise.

Sign an Ad

Choose an Ad from the market, immediately gain its signing bonus, and put it in your green room. Signing an Ad does not cost money.

Take a Network card

Choose a Network card from the market.

Immediate cards resolve at once.
Use once cards stay in your green room until used, then are discarded or otherwise consumed as shown by BGA.
Ongoing cards provide a continuing ability.
Game End cards score during final scoring.

Using an available Use Once Network card is a free action and does not replace your normal action. Follow the card text when it conflicts with a general rule.

Produce a Show

You cannot store an unproduced Show in your green room. When you take a Show from the market, you must be able to complete all of these steps:

Pay the Show's production cost.
Attach Stars and Ads from your green room. Every coloured slot is required; grey slots are optional. You may fill any number of optional slots while producing the Show.
Choose a timeslot in your lineup. Cancel the Show already there, if any, and put the new Show in its place.
Place the Show's season marker. In a preferred timeslot it begins on the top row; outside a preferred timeslot it begins on the X row, shortening its useful life as well as reducing its early viewers.
Advance one space on the matching genre track and immediately resolve any bonus reached.

A half-Star/half-Ad slot can hold either type, but each slot holds only one card.

Add or replace a Star or Ad

Move one Star or Ad from your green room to a compatible slot on a Show in your lineup. You may instead replace an attached card with another card that can legally occupy that slot. The removed card is discarded; it does not return to your green room.

When a Show has a wild slot, you may sometimes replace a Star with an Ad or vice versa, provided the final set of attachments still fits all of that Show's slots.

Pass

Take the leftmost available place on the pass track and choose its cash or viewer reward. Earlier pass positions offer better rewards. Cash is gained immediately; viewers are added to this round's score.

Passing is permanent for the rest of the round. When only one player has not passed, that player may take as many consecutive actions as desired. When finished, that player passes into the last, cash-only space.

Shows, Stars, and Ads

Seasons and timeslots

Each Show's season marker indicates its current viewers. After round scoring, it moves down one row. If it moves beyond the bottom of the card, the Show is canceled.

Most Shows have a preferred timeslot. Scheduling a Show elsewhere puts its season marker directly on the X row instead of its first row. Starter Shows have no preferred timeslot.

Attachment conditions

Some Stars and Ads have a condition, such as a genre, timeslot, or number of other attachments.

If the condition is met when the card is attached, attach it upright and use its normal values.
If the condition is not met, rotate it and use its grey values.
The card normally keeps that orientation even if the lineup later changes. Only a card effect can rotate it afterward.

For a timeslot condition, use the timeslot the Show actually occupies, not the Show's preferred timeslot.

Promo Ads are different: when attaching one, either pay its printed cost to keep it upright or attach it rotated. An upright Promo supplies viewers and income; a rotated Promo supplies only its rotated income.

Canceling a Show

When a Show is canceled:

Its season marker returns to your supply.
All attached Stars and Ads are discarded unless an effect says otherwise.
The Show goes faceup to your reruns.

You may cancel a Show only when a rule or card effect tells you to do so, such as replacing it, aging it beyond its final season, or being unable to pay upkeep.

End of the round

After everyone has passed, BGA resolves these steps in order.

Upkeep: Add all income in your lineup, then subtract all expenses in your lineup. Gain a positive difference or pay a negative difference.
Score the lineup: Add the current viewers from your Shows and attached cards, plus pass-track viewers and other applicable bonuses.
Age Shows: Move every season marker down one row. Cancel Shows whose markers move off their cards.
Check genres: Any genre-track advances and bonuses from Shows produced this round are confirmed.
Clear the pass track.
Set next round's first player or turn order.
Refresh the market: Discard all remaining market cards and deal a full new display.

If you cannot afford upkeep, you must cancel a Show of your choice and recalculate. Continue until you can pay or have no Shows left. A Show canceled during upkeep scores no viewers that round because upkeep happens before scoring.

The Forecast above your lineup shows what you would earn and score if the round ended now. It does not include choices that would happen only at round end.

Genre tracks

Whenever you produce a Show, advance one space on its genre track. If you have not entered that genre before, place your marker on space 1.

Some spaces award an immediate choice of cards. BGA presents the eligible cards privately in the choice strip. Reaching the top does not give another immediate reward, but it is worth 15 end-game viewers. Further advances in that genre have no effect.

Game end and final scoring

After round 4, resolve upkeep, lineup scoring, and aging normally. Then score:

Genres: the value reached on every genre track where you have a marker.
Reruns: the rerun value printed on every canceled Show in your reruns.
Network cards: all applicable Game End effects.
Cash: 1 viewer for every $3M remaining, rounded down.

Add these bonuses to all four round scores. The highest total wins; ties are shared.

Reading the interface

Your table

Market (top): Shows, Stars, Ads, and Network cards available to take, with deck counts. With Telly Time, the pass board sits above it.
Your area: green room on the left, player board in the middle, and lineup on the right.
Opponents: use the tabs to inspect another player's area. Lineups, green rooms, and reruns are public.
Scoreboard: round scores followed by end-game categories. Use the arrow to switch pages.

Tooltips

Hover over a card, or long-press it on mobile, to read its printed information in words.
Hover or long-press the Actions and Round End areas of your player board for a reference.
With Executives, hover or long-press the board for that Executive's abilities and drawbacks.
With Telly Time, hover or long-press the genre grid for its rules.
On mobile, tap elsewhere to close a tooltip.

Forecast

Above your lineup, Forecast shows the viewers and upkeep you would receive if the round ended now, before Quiz purchases and other round-end choices.
Beside each Show, a badge shows that Show's current viewers and upkeep.
A cube on your board's Round Scoring Track marks the same forecast total. Past 50, it laps and displays +50.

Choices and confirmations

Mandatory choices, such as a genre bonus or Network effect, appear in a strip at the top of the table.
Cards and Shows that cannot be used for the current action are dimmed.
Most actions require confirmation in the status bar after a short countdown. Change the delay under Action confirmation delay in the game preferences.
At round end, scoring may pause while a player resolves an effect.

How to read the cards

Shows

Genre: the track advanced when the Show is produced.
Expenses: paid during every upkeep while the Show remains in the lineup.
Preferred timeslot: sun = Daytime, sunset = Primetime, moon = Late Night.
Viewers by season: the viewers scored on each row.
X row: the starting row when the Show is outside a preferred timeslot.
Production cost: paid once when producing the Show.
Attachment slots: coloured slots are required; grey slots are optional; split slots hold either a Star or an Ad.
Rerun viewers: scored at game end after the Show has been canceled.

Stars

Signing cost: paid when the Star is taken.
Expenses: paid at upkeep while attached to a Show.
Viewers by season: added to the Show while upright.
Rotated values: used when the Star was attached without satisfying its condition.
Condition or special effect: determines how the card is attached or used.

Ads

Signing bonus: gained immediately when the Ad is taken.
Income: gained at upkeep while attached.
Rotated income: used when the Ad is attached rotated.
Condition or Promo cost: determines whether the Ad is upright or rotated.

Network cards

Timing icon: ! = Immediate, 1x = Use Once, infinity symbol = Ongoing, eye = Game End.
Icon summary: a compact picture of the effect.
Rules text: the full effect in words.

Game options

Pilot Setup

Normal: choose two cards from a private four-card Pilot Season offer.
Simplified: automatically keep two Pilot Stars and/or Ads; Pilot Shows are omitted.

Turn Order

Fixed Order: play clockwise; the first-player marker moves one seat after each round.
Low to High: after round 1, players act from the lowest previous-round score to the highest. For a tie, the player who was later in the previous order acts earlier.

Expansion modules

Expansion availability depends on the options offered at the table. The modules may be used separately or together.

Telly Time

Telly Time adds a fourth timeslot, three genres, and a personal Genre Grid in place of the normal genre tracks.

Genre Grid

The first Show you produce in a genre fills that genre's square.
Completing a row, column, or diagonal awards the bonus at the end of that line. One placement can complete more than one line.
When passing, gain $1M for each empty square in addition to any other eligible pass reward.
At round end, score 1 viewer for each filled square.
Normal genre-track end-game scoring does not apply.

Timeslots and genres

Weekend is a fourth timeslot.
A Show with two preferred timeslots may use either without penalty. ANY means any available timeslot.
Kids Shows cannot air in Primetime or Late Night.
Each Quiz Show may spend up to $5M during scoring for 1 viewer per $1M.
Each Chat Show gains viewers equal to the current Star viewers on your other Shows.

Moguls

Moguls are powerful cards with Immediate, Use Once, Ongoing, or Game End abilities. A player normally acquires at most one Mogul.

Acquiring a Mogul

A Mogul token begins on space 3 of each genre track.
The first eligible player to land there takes the token instead of the normal Network-card bonus, draws three Moguls, and keeps one.
After a token has been removed, that space gives its normal Network-card bonus to later players.
A player who already owns a Mogul receives the normal genre bonus instead of another Mogul.

Immediate Moguls remain owned after resolving. A used Use Once Mogul flips facedown but still counts as the player's Mogul. Ongoing and Game End Moguls score or operate at their stated timing.

With Telly Time: the second completed Genre Grid line awards a Mogul instead of its printed reward; draw two and keep one.

Executives

Executives replace the standard player boards with asymmetric abilities and drawbacks. Each player privately receives two Executives and chooses one, including the preferred artwork side.

Complexity 1 Executives make relatively small rules changes.
Complexity 2 or 3 Executives change more of the normal turn, economy, or scoring rules.
Hover or long-press an Executive board to read its full abilities and drawbacks.
BGA automatically applies special interactions when Executives are combined with Telly Time or Moguls.

The Specialist requires the Moguls module and can acquire two Moguls instead of one.

Strategy tips

Producing a strong Show early lets it score for more rounds. Putting it outside its preferred timeslot both lowers its opening value and makes it age out sooner.
Attach optional Stars and Ads while producing when practical. A later Add or Replace action handles only one card.
Watch both cash now and upkeep later. A lucrative Ad can support several expensive Shows and Stars.
Passing early can secure a strong reward, but leaves more of the shrinking market to the remaining players. The last player may take several consecutive actions.
Genre bonuses are useful, but repeatedly advancing one genre can compete with building a balanced, profitable lineup.
Before confirming a Show, check its production cost, required slots, timeslot row, genre bonus, and forecasted upkeep together.