Why do tv networks run their shows in seasons? When did this practice start and where does it come from? Is it a carryover from radio? Or theater? Is it still a relevant practice, or is there no need for it anymore?
Fascinating question. My first thought would be that the “fall season” shares some time with school season, and the summer break seems to as well. The heavy dodging that is required during football season so that there aren’t too many interruptions of the flow of a series makes the conflict with football an issue, too.
From the production side, I would expect that the actors demand time off for other projects so that they don’t stay fulltime at the same job all year round.
Awaiting better and more well-informed answers.
I think it comes from the temperate climate in the US, and has ties to school years, which have in turn come from rural roots. In the summer, days are longer, people spend more time outdoors and less huddled in front of the TV. When fall comes, they move indoors and the TV becomes the focal point of the family evening. Or at least it used to be, when if you wanted to watch a TV show, you had to plan to be in front of it when it was being broadcast. This was especially true for live shows, which weren’t recorded and repeated.
Why is it still that way now? Inertia and custom.
It would appear that way. I suspect the way that sponsorships work has something to do with short seasons, too. Thirteen weeks, if they’re lucky, seem to be a norm that keeps the big sponsors from getting burned if they backed a doggy. These days, with the brutality and ignorance of the big networks, getting a show to 13 weeks is a big coup. I’ve seen favorites of mine cancelled after as few as four shows.
You can’t kill off a slate of new stuff without having others in the can (or at least in the wings). The Free Market is probably as big a culprit as any.
It’s often not economically feasible to run them every week of the year. So you want to air them when you get the biggest bang for your buck. And, as mentioned, that at least used to be in the colder months when people spent more time indoors.
It really would be awesome if anyone out there knew what time of year has the highest ratings in more recent years.
My guess- shooting in seasons allows the actors, writers, production crew, et al to plan their next job.
If you have 20 different shows all shooting from week 2-15, then another set of 20 shows all shooting from week 17 -30 all the people can finish one job, before moving smoothly to the next. The actors have 20 different shows that they can audition for. And the creators have a large pool of available actors to choose from.
But if the shows shoot any old time, one show goes from week 5-17, another show goes from week 16-28 its no good for either of them. The actors from show 1 won’t be available for show 2, the creators will have a limited pool of people from whichever shows happen to finish around then. And the actors will also have a limited number of shows starting that they can audition for.
And, having filmed them in blocks, it’s natural that they will be broadcast in blocks.
Sweeps weeks. Not due to climate or calendar, but deliberately manipulated to get the most viewers.
All of this raises the question, why are cable ‘seasons’ different? I’m not a huge tv watcher, but as near as I can tell a lot of popular cable programs (especially “reality” programs like Mythbusters) schedule their seasons to air at any old time. My wife watches Design Star on HGTV, and their season is summer/early fall. Since many cable programs are just as popular as broadcast programming, why not follow the same scheduling format? My kids watch icarly, and nickelodeon apparently airs one new episode every month or so throughout the summer/fall/winter as a ‘season’.
I think the cable networks often position their seasons to maximize ratings by strategically placing them at times when the networks are in reruns, giving them less competition. Some of them sort of rotate their original programming so as to always have something new going.
I’m kind of surprised the networks haven’t done that yet. I don’t see the economic sense in just surrendering a large chunk of the year to competition. I know the contempt the networks have for their audiences is breathtaking, but I would think that arrogance is going to start having diminishing returns. The audience draws less and less distinction between the networks and cable anymore and have too many other options. I don’t how much longer the nets can keep airing reruns for half the year (and even during their ostensible “seasons,” they still have periodic gaps between new episodes) and still maintain their market dominance. I barely watch anything on network television as it is.
Every few years you’ll see the networks trying a “summer season.” Fox premiered a bunch of shows last summer, and of course, added new seasons of their reality shows.
For example, the very first season of Survivor ran from the end of May and had its finale in late August as part of CBS’ attempts to create a summer show. When they realized how big Survivor was, Big Brother became their summer show and Survivor was moved to the fall.
In the early days of television it was likened to live theater, and, in fact, all shows were broadcast live. Live theater (and opera, etc.) has always had seasons, for the same reasons listed above: so that the production staff can have periods of “down time,” or vacations.
It goes back to the days of radio, but there must be something more to it.
The auto industry used to shut down in July so that plants could retool for the next model year, which started in September.
There’s an old joke about France being closed in August because everyone’s on vacation, so it’s not unique to America either.
M WAG is that in the pre-air conditioning days, it was just too damn hot to work in a factory or merchant, so they’d close up during the hottest weeks (and do maintenance or whatever). Then, everybody who wasn’t working on a farm started taking vacation then. With fewer people at home, fewer people were around to listen to the radio (or watch TV in the early days) so it made economic sense to spend less money on new programming during that period.
Last time I heard, total TV viewership (broadcast and cable) is STILL lower in the summer than other times of year, so simply putting on new programming won’t change it.
People didn’t have AC in their homes either, so they were spending their evenings outside a lot too. It used to be common for people to sit out on their porches and socialize, or stroll the neighborhood, etc. They were not that eager to sit inside and stew around a radio.
Here’s a related question: If this is all based on custom and climate, how do TV seasons work in Australia? (As far as I can tell, Australia is the only developed country in the Southern Hemisphere that has well-defined seasons. The rest - Brazil, etc. - are basically warm year-round.)
The Southern hemisphere tends to have milder seasons than the northern, but South Africa, Chile and Argentina definitely have noticeable seasons, too.
The idea of seasons goes back to theater, orchestra, and opera seasons, from a time when theaters weren’t air-conditioned.