For cryin’ out loud, half the programs tonight in prime time are repeats. The season just started, so do all the poor overworked and underpaid writers and actors need a vacation already?
The networks are waiting for the November sweeps.
Y’know, I’ve wondered about this the last few years. Now, I admit that I don’t watch TV anywhere near as much as I did when I was a kid, but it seems to me that you used to have the regular season, which was always either first-run episodes or specials (Charlie Brown, Rudolph, etc.). Then you had summer, when everything was in repeats.
Now it seems like there are an AWFUL lot of repeats in the regular season. I remember when I used to watch ER at the bar every Thursday night (through the magic of closed-captioning) and it seemed like there was a repeat every other week that season. Are networks buying fewer episodes as a standard package now, or is this just perception?
Sweeps is in November and February, so the networks need to fill gaps so they can stretch their shows through a whole season, filling in as many sweeps months as possible.
The standard number of episodes shot has been falling for decades.
In the early days of television, seasons were as long as 39 weeks. They are now at 20-22 weeks. The last season of Friends was 18 weeks.
Why? Mostly because episodes cost so much money and because comparatively so few people watch the first run that a much larger fresh audience is available for reruns during the year.
Oh, and to answer the hidden question behind the OP. Has putting all these major episodes on during sweeps skew the results so much that sweeps numbers have stopped being at all meaningful? Yes. So why do they still do it? Because everyone involved is an idiot.
There’s also a sweeps period in May. November and May are the biggies.
The World Series was this week, and if it had gone the full seven games would have conflicted with tonight’s (Saturday’s) programming. The networks don’t like to schedule first-run programs against such a ratings draw, so they schedule re-runs instead.
ER actually ran a rerun from last season the other day. But could they at least run an episode I missed? No…
I think they are pouting in a corner refusing to show anything new, until at least a hundred people watch their show. They forgot that people might actually want interesting content in a show. I would like to see something beside a black screen most of the show. I’d swear all the bad 70’s producers are back into making these shows. " Look! Did you see that? There! I’m telling you, I think I saw a face. Ya, that grey smudge on the black screen."
Anyone know what’s up with the SciFi Friday shows? They start in July, and have their “Season Finales” in September! Do I have to wait 'til next summer, or are they using “season” in a weather fashion and not in a TV-year fashion?
Most cable networks program their shows on a different schedule from the “broadcast” networks. That way they don’t have to compete directly and can lure audiences in when the other networks’ viewership is at its lowest.
This has been standard TV procedure since the 80s, and, for some reason, someone always is surprised when it happens. We’ll probably get another question in January about reruns.
Look, folks, the TV schedule is as follows:
Mid-September – Thanksgiving: new episodes, with reruns during World Series/Baseball playoffs.
Thanksgiving – mid-January: reruns
mid-January – end of February: new episodes
February – end of March Madness: Reruns
Late March – Memorial day: new episodes
Memorial day – mid-September: reruns
Cut this out and put on your refrigerator.
Former TV guy here.
You guys forgot about July. It’s also a sweeps month. That’s why there are some efforts by some networks at that time. Otherwise, everyone else is on target.
Assuming a 22 week supply of first run episodes, a network will commit 12 of them for November, February and May. That leaves only ten new episodes to spread over mid-September through October, December-January and March-April.
For those of you that are interested, sweeps months always start on Thursday and run for 28 days.