Movies on free-to-air TV are often sped up primarily for time management and scheduling purposes. Broadcasters have a limited timeframe for programming slots and may wish to fit more content into a particular schedule. By slightly increasing the playback speed of movies, they can reduce the overall duration, allowing broadcasters to include additional commercial breaks or fit multiple films into a single broadcast window.

Moreover, this acceleration can help to balance content across the day, ensuring that time slots allocated for movies do not exceed their intended broadcast length. While this practice can lead to noticeable changes in audio and visual pacing, it is done to maximize viewer engagement and advertising revenue for the network.

In some cases, networks also edit out scenes or reduce the duration of credits to further fit a movie into a specific broadcast slot. This practice, however, can be controversial as it may detract from the film’s original artistic intention and viewer experience.