And, there are very few game shows left on daytime network TV, as well. CBS still has The Price is Right, and revived Let’s Make a Deal in 2009, but NBC and ABC haven’t had daytime game shows in years. (That said, there are some syndicated game shows – primarily Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune – which run during daytime on many stations.)
What about re-runs? The pool of TV shows made in this century with good production values keeps getting larger. And I would imagine that some of them, especially the ones that were not hugely successful, are available for relatively little. At some point would they start displacing typical daytime fare? Or is there a basic desire for fresh programming even if it’s not very good ?
If you look at the daytime schedules for the big three U.S. networks, they don’t offer any programming for a fair chunk of the day, leaving that time for local affilliates to fill in as they wish – that time gets filled with local news, and syndicated stuff (both first-run talk shows and game shows, and re-runs of old shows).
As I understand it, the market for syndicated re-runs is mostly for half-hour sitcoms. For the traditional broadcast stations, they tend to be primarily interested in recent sitcoms which have recently become available in syndication, as well as a handful of older sitcoms which can still reliably pull in decent ratings (e.g., Seinfeld). Relatively few show older shows in that space, as they typically don’t generate good ratings.
Older sitcoms, and dramas, are now more likely to be found on the “secondary” digital channels that most stations now offer, which many of them fill with syndicated retro-TV channels (such as MeTV, Antenna TV, etc.)
That’s how they were done. Now there are some stops and starts are resets and re-takes, while a warm-up comedian comes out to keep the audience entertained and alive for a few minutes.
Yes, as a result, local TV stations might not be able to access or afford quality sitcom reruns.
When I was a kid in the Seventies, the 1-5pm slots were mostly devoted to reruns of 1960s sitcoms. They were aimed at school age kids who were too young to see them in their original runs.
That is exactly how I became a fan of Gilligan’s Island, The Addams Family, and I Dream of Jeannie, as well as Star Trek and Batman. 
The OP singles out American daytime TV. Do other countries have first-run sitcoms showing on daytime TV?
Also, a lot of modern sitcoms aren’t produced in the traditional, multi-camera format at all anymore. Sitcoms like Modern Family, The Office, black-ish, and The Goldbergs are (or, were) shot single-camera, without a studio audience (i.e., more like a drama). It appears that many of the current sitcoms which are done multi-camera are Chuck Lorre’s productions.
Except a lot of those retro TV stations are carried on the digital subchannels of local stations - why would my local station want to pay for say, Barney Miller when they already carry Antenna TV on one of their subchannels? They’re are loads of these retro-channels, which show reruns of sitcoms and dramas some of which haven’t been seen in years. Sure, you could find All in the Family in syndication at some point - but I don’t think I saw Maude on an over-the -air channel since its original run.
There might have been an issue with that particular show–a lot of “heartland” stations might have considered it too political, controversial, feminist, etc., for their local audiences.
There might have been - but that was the first one I could think of that really wasn’t seen in over the air syndication. Believe me, those stations have plenty of shows that either were never in syndication or haven’t been for years- does anyone other than me even remember Dear John or Lotsa Luck
Definitely remember Dear John … the liar “Kirk,” and the therapist who emphasized sexual … have no idea what that other show is.
I vaguely remembered the name. It ran for one season (1973-74), and starred Dom DeLuise as a guy who supported his family (including his lazy brother-in-law) with his job at the bus company.
If Wikipedia is correct, it runs on Antenna TV.
In my experience, with the possible exception of the UK, European countries produce a tiny fraction of the sitcoms that the US does. There are hardly any domestically made sitcoms even in prime time.
I can’t really think of any sitcoms where if you miss a week you wouldn’t be able to follow the plot. 
Sure they may have overarching story lines that last the whole season, but most episodes can be viewed on their own and not lose anything. It’s not like they are super plot-heavy shows like hour-long dramas.
Traditionally, a show had to appeal to kids to some extent to make it successful in syndication; especially during daytime.
OMG, I remember when Dark Shadows was on in the late '60s/early '70s, you could miss an entire month and maybe need 15 seconds to catch up on the one new plot element introduced during that period.
Missing a week of a sitcom means missing one 30 minute episode. Missing a week of a soap is missing five 60 minute episodes. It would be like skipping almost half a season of a sitcom and still being able to understand everything that’s going on.
The difference is that if you have a storyline, you can use it for weeks, so it’s merely a matter keeping the premise going without resolution.
A traditional sitcom has one or two stories, all resolved at the end. That means you have to have a brand new idea for each episodes. Think of any sitcom. Cheers, for example, had 275 episodes, spread over 11 years. That would be about 11 months if it were aired five days a week. It’s hard enough keeping up quality if a show does 22 episodes a year; it’d be impossible to do it with 300 episodes a year.
Note the sitcoms that did try this were soap opera parodies and a talk show parody.