The Adult Swim model is a classic TV pattern: a children's network by day that changes into something completely different after dark. Different tone, different bumps, tighter timing, and a clear on/off moment that marks the transition.
This guide walks through how to build that in FieldStation42, using Toon TV as the example. The same approach works for any channel that needs to shift identity at a specific time of night.
What We're Building
A single channel config that:
- Plays daytime cartoons from 7 AM to 9 PM on the station's normal 30-minute schedule
- Switches to a late-night block at 9 PM with its own bumps and 15-minute timing
- Opens with a signon at 9 PM and closes with a signoff at 6 AM
- Runs the same schedule every day
Folder Structure
Everything lives under one content_dir. The key is keeping the daytime and late-night bumps in separate folders. The names below are just an example for the config example below. Wse whatever folder names and structure make sense for your library, and update the config values to match.
catalog/toon_tv/
├── toons/ <- daytime content
├── as/
│ ├── aqua_teen/
│ ├── robot_chicken/
│ ├── harvey_birdman/
│ ├── sealab/
│ ├── metalocalypse/
│ ├── space_ghost/
│ ├── family_guy/
│ ├── american_dad/
│ ├── rick_and_morty/
│ └── venture_bros/
├── commercial/ <- daytime commercials
├── as_commercials/ <- late-night commercials
├── bump/ <- daytime bumps
└── as_bumps/ <- late-night bumps
├── pre/ <- "we'll be right back" cards (optional)
├── post/ <- "and we're back" cards (optional)
├── signon.mp4
└── signoff.mp4
The daytime and late-night bump and commercial folders are completely separate. That separation is what makes the whole thing work.
The Slot Override
Without any special configuration, every slot on your channel uses the same bumps folder. If you want the 9 PM slot to use as_bumps instead of bump, you'd add "bump_dir": "as_bumps" to that slot. Then the 10 PM slot. Then the 11 PM slot. And so on through 6 AM.
Slot overrides solve this. Define your late-night settings once in slot_overrides, then reference them with "overrides" on each slot:
"slot_overrides": {
"adult_swim_block": {
"bump_dir": "as_bumps",
"commercial_dir": "as_commercials",
"schedule_increment": 15
}
}
Then in your schedule:
"22": {"tags": "as/family_guy", "overrides": "adult_swim_block"}
Every slot that uses "overrides": "adult_swim_block" gets bump_dir, commercial_dir, and schedule_increment applied automatically. The daytime slots continue using the station-level commercial and bump folders. Change a setting in the override and it applies to every late-night slot at once.
Why Schedule Increment 15?
The station default is schedule_increment: 30. That works well for daytime cartoons: a 22-minute episode gets buffered to fill a 30-minute block, with commercials in the gap.
Adult Swim is built around 15-minute shows. With schedule_increment: 30, a 12-minute episode gets padded to fill 30 minutes, which is too much. With schedule_increment: 15, it gets padded to 15 minutes: one episode, one commercial break, done.
Because this is set inside the override, the late-night block uses 15-minute timing and the daytime block stays on 30. The station-level setting handles daytime; the override handles late-night.
Filling the Quarter-Hours
Each hour in your schedule is one config entry. With schedule_increment: 15 and a single tag, the scheduler fills the whole hour with that show: four 15-minute blocks, four episodes of the same show.
When you list multiple tags in an array, the hour gets divided evenly between them. Four tags means four 15-minute quarters, one show per quarter:
"21": {
"tags": ["as/aqua_teen", "as/robot_chicken", "as/harvey_birdman", "as/sealab"],
"overrides": "adult_swim_block"
}
9 PM plays one episode each of ATHF, Robot Chicken, Harvey Birdman, and Sealab, with commercial breaks between them.
For 30-minute shows, two tags splits the hour into two 30-minute halves:
"22": {
"tags": ["as/family_guy", "as/american_dad"],
"overrides": "adult_swim_block"
}
Mix the two patterns across your late-night hours to reflect how Adult Swim actually programmed: short shows early, longer syndicated shows later in the night.
Signon and Signoff
The block needs a clear opening and closing moment. start_bump and end_bump handle this: a clip plays before the first show of a slot (start_bump) or after the last show (end_bump). Both accept either a path to a single file or a path to a folder -- if you point them at a folder, one clip is chosen at random each time.
Put start_bump only on the first late-night slot and end_bump only on the last:
"21": {
"tags": ["as/aqua_teen", "as/robot_chicken", "as/harvey_birdman", "as/sealab"],
"overrides": "adult_swim_block",
"start_bump": "as_bumps/signon.mp4"
},
...
"5": {
"tags": ["as/aqua_teen", "as/robot_chicken", "as/metalocalypse", "as/space_ghost"],
"overrides": "adult_swim_block",
"end_bump": "as_bumps/signoff.mp4"
}
These stay on the individual slots rather than inside the override because the override applies to every slot that references it. If start_bump were in the override, every late-night hour would play the signon clip.
The Complete Config
{
"station_conf": {
"network_name": "Toon TV",
"channel_number": 42,
"content_dir": "catalog/toon_tv",
"commercial_dir": "commercial",
"bump_dir": "bump",
"schedule_increment": 30,
"break_strategy": "standard",
"slot_overrides": {
"adult_swim_block": {
"bump_dir": "as_bumps",
"commercial_dir": "as_commercials",
"schedule_increment": 15
}
},
"day_templates": {
"everyday": {
"7": {"tags": "toons"},
"8": {"tags": "toons"},
"9": {"tags": "toons"},
"10": {"tags": "toons"},
"11": {"tags": "toons"},
"12": {"tags": "toons"},
"13": {"tags": "toons"},
"14": {"tags": "toons"},
"15": {"tags": "toons"},
"16": {"tags": "toons"},
"17": {"tags": "toons"},
"18": {"tags": "toons"},
"19": {"tags": "toons"},
"20": {"tags": "toons"},
"21": {
"tags": ["as/aqua_teen", "as/robot_chicken", "as/harvey_birdman", "as/sealab"],
"overrides": "adult_swim_block",
"start_bump": "as_bumps/signon.mp4"
},
"22": {"tags": ["as/family_guy", "as/american_dad"], "overrides": "adult_swim_block"},
"23": {"tags": ["as/aqua_teen", "as/metalocalypse", "as/space_ghost", "as/robot_chicken"], "overrides": "adult_swim_block"},
"0": {"tags": ["as/rick_and_morty", "as/venture_bros"], "overrides": "adult_swim_block"},
"1": {"tags": ["as/harvey_birdman", "as/sealab", "as/aqua_teen", "as/metalocalypse"], "overrides": "adult_swim_block"},
"2": {"tags": ["as/family_guy", "as/rick_and_morty"], "overrides": "adult_swim_block"},
"3": {"tags": ["as/robot_chicken", "as/space_ghost", "as/harvey_birdman", "as/sealab"], "overrides": "adult_swim_block"},
"4": {"tags": ["as/american_dad", "as/venture_bros"], "overrides": "adult_swim_block"},
"5": {
"tags": ["as/aqua_teen", "as/robot_chicken", "as/metalocalypse", "as/space_ghost"],
"overrides": "adult_swim_block",
"end_bump": "as_bumps/signoff.mp4"
}
}
},
"monday": "everyday",
"tuesday": "everyday",
"wednesday": "everyday",
"thursday": "everyday",
"friday": "everyday",
"saturday": "everyday",
"sunday": "everyday"
}
}
Going Further
Per-night lineups. If you want Friday to lead with Rick and Morty or Saturday to run a different rotation, create separate day templates and assign them by day. The adult_swim_block override stays the same; only the tags and order change.
Context-aware bumps. The next/ subfolder inside as_bumps lets you add "coming up next" bump cards that only play when a specific show is actually scheduled next. See the Bumps and Commercials guide for how to set those up.