Reaction during Wednesday night's presidential debate and afterward careered around the Internet and filled hours on the television airwaves.
The news media, which have filled hours of radio and cable talk shows with the seeming epidemic of kidnappings of young girls, swing into action just as smoothly.
That similarity will be fodder for cable news chatter as the networks seek to fill hours of analysis during the court's deliberations.
But the persistent focus on the sniper meant that the networks had to scramble to fill hours of time between developments, which were few and far between.
BSkyB, which holds the exclusive live rights to the Ryder Cup, was left to fill hours of airtime with interviews, smeared lenses and archive footage.
Outside the hospital massed ranks of media from across the globe braved the bitter chill to fill hours of airtime with the few facts at their disposal.
There would be nothing to do but slide into that zoned-out state where filling hours becomes less important than soaking up the surrounding beauty.
In 1966, television viewership was exploding, and stations around the country found that they could fill hours easily and cheaply by broadcasting old movies.
Health Care GORE Healthh care, as we all know, is an extremely complex issue -- one that could fill hours and hours and hours of adult, intelligent debate, preferably in front of a national audience on all major networks, ahem, ahem.
Other firms, such as TV-Africa, also provide content (plans for a pan-African soap opera are under way) to fill hours of prime-time for dozens of African terrestrial broadcasters, in exchange for the right to sell adverts.
