# Why do some channels play the same sitcom over and over? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 12, 2014, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496 "2014-03-12T01:39:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496/21 "2014-03-13T10:47:43Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > There must be hundreds of episodes, do they have to repeat the shows the next night? Why? That’s the real issue, not that they strip or even marathon the episodes. It’s that they show THE SAME ONES over and over and over again. I’ve seen some episodes of _ **Big Bang Theory** _ and _ **Frasier** _ so many times I know all the lines by heart. I now leave the set on merely to have some background noise while I’m working. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496/22 "2014-03-13T13:52:21Z")
And sometimes there will be a block of six on a channel…but it will be the same three, repeated twice. ---
**Author:** ![Calatin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/439d5e/32.png) [@Calatin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Calatin)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496/23 "2014-03-13T19:03:10Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > 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. Additionally, it is very rare that I have seen most of the “Thanksgiving” episodes of Friends (the one w/ Chandler in a box, the first one [where we find out that Chandler doesn’t like Thanksgiving], etc.) and back when I worked from home, I went through more than a few full series cycles of the show, thanks to TBS’s 6 episode block every weekday. Anyone else notice this? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496/24 "2014-03-13T20:42:52Z")
> [@Calatin](#): > > Additionally, it is very rare that I have seen most of the “Thanksgiving” episodes of Friends (the one w/ Chandler in a box, the first one [where we find out that Chandler doesn’t like Thanksgiving], etc.) and back when I worked from home, I went through more than a few full series cycles of the show, thanks to TBS’s 6 episode block every weekday. > > Anyone else notice this? I just saw the box one a few weeks ago during one of those 4 or 6 or 8 episode blocks. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496/25 "2014-03-13T20:52:34Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > 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? It’s not the same three episodes, it just _seems_ like it’s the same three episodes. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2014, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496/26 "2014-03-13T21:21:49Z")
> [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](#): > > And sometimes there will be a block of six on a channel…but it will be the same three, repeated twice. One block for the East coast, one for the west coast. ---
**Author:** ![JuliaSqueezer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/82dd89/32.png) [@JuliaSqueezer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JuliaSqueezer)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496/27 "2014-03-14T14:30:41Z")
Same question about BBC America. Why show the same Star Trek episodes on an endless loop? Somebody’s paying a dollar a minute for their ads, because viewership has to be pretty low, after the 800th showing. I will give them credit for the occasional bursts of 48 hours straight of Ramsay’s shows and Top Gear. At least they are British shows! I have to get my British detective shows and comedies on Netflix, DVD rentals and other streams, because BBC America is a complete failure if its purpose is to introduce the US to British television. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496/28 "2014-03-14T14:52:11Z")
I don’t have a DVR, but when I was housesitting for my neighbor then I realized that I could easily record the weekly _Psych_ marathon – which aired in the late evening/early morning – and then watch them when I liked for the rest of the week. If they’d been airing one episode of the show a day then I still could have recorded it if the air time wasn’t good for me, but it seemed a little more convenient to get a bunch of episodes at once. I could then choose how many I wanted to watch in one sitting. ---
**Author:** ![unwashed\_brain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a9adbd/32.png) [@unwashed\_brain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/unwashed_brain)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2014, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496/29 "2014-03-14T14:57:58Z")
I work for a major cable network, and the answer is we show what people will watch. Eyeballs attract big advertising revenue, which in turn pays for the rights to air syndicated shows. The networks only loosely care about what show airs. If the viewership for a 3-hour block of a show produces the best ratings, it’s what’ll air. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-some-channels-play-the-same-sitcom-over-and-over/683496.md?page=1)