I noticed a lot of channels play the same program over and over it is not just sitcoms, but also crime dramas and reality shows. I see this quite frequently as I am channel surfing, you would think this day and age there is so much variety that networks would provide more selection.
Because people watch those shows over and over.
I just watched like 7 episodes of Leverage in a row. It was fun.
(I had never seen them before)
I don’t know, I’ve wondered about it too. It usually seems like they top out at 2 episodes of the same series back to back most of the time, but I’ve seen them put 4 episodes back to back before. Higher than that is rare or a marathon situation.
However I like the 2 episodes back to back. If I’m in the mood for Seinfeld and I’ve missed the first one I can see the second. However 4 is overkill.
When I’m in the mood to sit down and watch some TV, I like watching several episodes of the same program in a row. Usually I watch something from my DVR or from Netflix, but something catches my eye while flipping channels.
Easy, because TAGS (The Andy Griffith Show) is the best show ever filmed and deserves to be watched over and over.
Each channel has 24 hours to fill every single day. Showing the same show two or three times per day means they reduce the number of shows to which they need to purchase the broadcast rights.
Why do moderators type the same post over and over again? Because people open threads in the wrong forum. 
Moving from IMHO to Cafe Society.
One of the stations around here runs Friends and Roseanne like that. They run them episode after episode with no commercials between them. That is, when an episode of Friends ends, the next one starts while the credits for the first one is still running. If you like the show and it’s just running in the background it makes it hard to change the channel. If you like the show and you’re actively watching it, it’s easy to get sucked into 3 or 4 episodes.
I don’t watch it, but based on how many commercials I see, I think they do it with CSI Miami as well.
On a somewhat unlrelated note, but a question I’ve always wanted to ask: One of the stations around here (a different one I think) used to run an episode of Friends every night at 10pm. At one point I noticed they were running them in order so I made a point of tuning in every night. In the end, by the time they stopped doing it I ended up watching the entire series like 3 Yes, I really like friends, and when you watch it like that it only takes about a year to get through a season.
Anyways, I noticed that each time they’d leave out a different episode in the last season. My guess was that they were either trying deal with programming issues (though that was the only thing ever in that slot) OR that in addition to paying some kind of fee/royalty for playing the show, there was an additional fee for playing the entire series. Leave out an episode or two and the entire series/season was never played.
Another possibility is that it was the same episode each time and there was some issue with it so they couldn’t/wouldn’t play it.
I was going to try and answer your question Joey but I think either you missed something or I did, because I can’t figure any of it out.:o
I think MeTV shows (or used to show) 4 MASH episodes a night, right at dinner time. But if one doesn’t care to watch that show, there goes 2 hours with one less choice. They do show programs I want to watch-at 2-5 am! Can’t they switch it around a little?
Some channels just go too far. I swear the USA network shows ONLY L&O SVU. Although I can’t prove it by their on-line schedule this week, I remember checking on the cable box and seeing 24 hours of just SVU one day.
We wanted to ‘get caught up’ with Castle and TNT helpfully provides big blocks every evening. Nice thing is, when they show 5-6 eps a night, you can get caught up quickly. Trouble is, with 5-6 episodes a night you don’t have time to watch anything else!
I’ll strip it down…A station plays an episode of Friends every night, in order. When they get to the end of the series they start right back over at the pilot. Why is it that each time they leave out one of the episodes (possibly two) in the final season. A different episode each time.
It’s comfort food.
This is second-hand, from an article I read a few years ago, but I’ll give it a shot…
When you “buy” a syndicated show, you have the right to show the licensed episodes for only a certain period of time. But there is no limit on the number of times you can air the show within that period, so to recoup their investment the station will air as many episodes as it needs to in order to sell enough advertising to pay for their investment.
TNT has this down to a science. They’ll get a show, say The Big Bang Theory, and the following will happen:
- A month before the show premieres, you’ll see TBBT commercials everywhere whenever you view TNT, TBS, etc.
- When the show premieres, you run the hell out of it. This is the period where you can charge your advertisers the most, so why not have 2 nights dedicated solely to TBBT, and an episode every day at 5 and 5:30? And a couple of weekend marathons, while we’re at it!
- When audience enthusiasm wanes, the show then gets put on the regular schedule - say, four episodes every Tuesday night from 8-10pm. The advertising support gets cut, but not completely.*
- Nearing the end of the contract, you review your P/L statement on the show and decide whether to cut advertising support, run more episodes, renew the contract, or just stop showing them in favor of the Next Big Thing. Or some combination of the above.
Then TBBT will go to your “second-tier” cable stations - AMC, A&E, F/X, whoever, and the same process will begin again.
*This is about where TBBT is currently for TNT. It’s still their “premiere” show, but it doesn’t get the advertising support that it used to, nor is it shown as often.
That could be a big part of it. You get home from work and watch 4 episodes of Roseanne/CSI/Friends and don’t even realize you missed Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune and your local news. Then you turn off the TV, go about your day and go to bed. The next day when you get home from work, the TV is still on that station and your favorite show is still on and the same thing happens. After a few days 4 episodes of Roseanne isn’t ‘just on’ it’s ‘what you watch’ when you get home from work. Even if you TiVo some shows, when you get home from work, your TV may still be tuned to the same channel you left it on when you went to bed.
My best guess is technical difficulties. It’s probably not any more mysterious than the server has skipped a file for whatever reason; with digital it’s all or nothing generally speaking and because everything’s so automated now, there’s probably not anyone watching. so it skips the file (an individual episode) and plays the next one in order.
I didn’t even consider the possibility of a corrupt file or bad file name or something like that. So the lackey they have watching it makes a note of it, it gets fixed and a year later a different one is having an issue. The fact that I always noticed it with Friends tells me that either it happens a lot and that’s the only show I paid enough attention to (very likely) or Friends was getting played on/from some older equipment that was causing some problems.
Yeah, but if it’s accidental, wouldn’t it mess up the mashup thing you mention between the two episodes? Or do they actually wind up sometimes showing the last episode and the first episode on the same night?
Because you accidentally switched to the autism channel? (This might be in bad taste, be a whoosh, and I happen to have a child on the autism spectrum. She would call this “awesome programming” )
Why do they show, say, three episodes of King of Queens in a row on TV Land one night…and the next night, they show THE SAME THREE EPISODES of King of Queens that they showed just the night before??? Why do they do that? there must be hundreds of episodes, do they have to repeat the shows the next night? Why?