What does "8, 7 Central" mean?

When a time of "8, 7 Central" is given, this indicates 8:00 Eastern Standard Time, which is 7:00 Central Standard Time. You usually hear these words in reference to television programming.

Television schedules generally correspond to stations on the East coast, where EST is, and the West coast, where the Pacific time zone is. The East coast has New York City as its main television production area, while the West coast has Los Angeles. Mountain time, the other main time zone in the United States, uses the Central time zone taping for its broadcast. Therefore, it is important to know the two main times a television program is on, EST and CST.