Can someone here point me in the right direction to find data on which television series is shown most frequently in reruns? I realize there are definition problems–most frequently on network television, most frequently in the U.S., based on number of stations or audience reached, based on residuals paid, etc. However, I haven’t been able to locate any data, so at this point I don’t want to fuss too much about narrowing down what I want.
And, of course, we can all speculate. I’m thinking it’s I Love Lucy, my husband thinks it’s Law and Order.
For a long time, one version or another of “I Love Lucy” was on television every minute of the day, somewhere.
That’s got to be significant.
My favorite quote on the subject of Baywatch was: “Mankind has spent more time watching Baywatch than actually building all of the Seven Wonders of the World.”
Kind of explains the whole decline and fall of modern civilization, donnit?
“The Simpsons” is on somewhere all the time. With as long as that show has been on, however, the number of times each episode has been shown is probably smaller than that of “Gilligan’s Island.” There were only 97 episodes of “Gilligan’s Island.” “The Simpsons” currently has more than four times that.
There was a time a few years back that I Love Lucy was on three different networks in this area and each played at least two episodes a day.*
I knew them all.
Friends was on continual loop here for a while. Even while it was in production, each season was followed by a repeat of the last season, before the new season started.
Then, after it ended, we just got it over and over again, right through from the beginning to the finale. My mum finally managed to catch the last episode the (IIRC) sixth time around of the current run.
MAS*H could be up there, Fawlty Towers must have a look in. Another vote for the Simpsons too - we’ve been getting that between 5-8 episodes a week just on the free to air channels, more on Pay TV.
I never thought about episode numbers. The Honeymooners is very popular in reruns (WPIX here in New York, which does a marathon every New Year’s, has been running it so long their syndicated prints still have the old Viacom “V of Doom” at the end), and it ran for only 39 episodes. However, 68 additional “lost episodes” (actually old Jackie Gleason Show sketches) were added to the syndication package in the mid-80s, so that number no longer stands.