Same thing at 6 am too..... Agree about the hassle. In this day with possible missiles being launched at any time, Having the channels go dark at the top of the news is not a good thing in my humble opinion. Thank God for an Android box and Kodi builds! At least I get the top of the news of the day.
There could be two possibilities.... 1. Shift change and the hamsters need rotated and a new hamster gets put in the wheel.... That could take 20 minutes.... Or 2. They do it as a service so we can set our clocks. It goes out you set clock. If it's light outside then 6 PM EST. If it's still relatively dark then it's 6 AM EST.