Cleveland Abbe
In order to compile his information, Abbe required a time-keeping system that was consistent among the stations. To accomplish this he divided the United States into four standard time zones. He published, in 1879, a paper titled "Report on Standard Time". In 1883, he convinced North American railroad companies to adopt his time-zone system. In 1884, Britain, which had already adopted its own standard time system for England, Scotland, and Wales, helped gather international consent for global time. In time, the American government, influenced in part by his 1879 paper, adopted the time-zone system.
Prime time
In North America, television networks feed their prime time programming in two blocks: one for the Eastern and Central time zones, and the other, on a three-hour tape delay, for the Pacific time zone, to their local network affiliates. In Atlantic Canada (including Newfoundland) as well as Alaska and Hawaii, there is no change in the interpretation or usage of “prime time” as the concept is not attached to time zones in any way. Affiliates in the Mountain, Alaskan, and Hawaiian zones are either on their own to delay broadcast by an hour or two, or collectively form a small, regional network feed with others in the same time zone.