When I was a child, I remember having a favorite TV show, or several. These shows had an unflinching schedule that you could rely on year after year. The season would start up around the same time as school, sometime in early September, perhaps take a small break around the holidays and then continue on until school let out again around early June. It was the same every year. You knew when summer hit that you would have to endure 3 months of episodes you'd already seen, but you were expecting it. The average season lasted about 26 episodes.
But not anymore.
TV execs have gotten so lazy these days that you don't know what to expect. Shows have their "season premiere" at just about any point during the calendar year. New shows are never given the chance to get off the ground, and mid-season replacements have become commonplace. "Seasons" sometimes last only a few episodes and then it goes into re-runs. Case in point: One of the shows I enjoy (which shall remain nameless) had it's "season premiere" on January 13th. Now this week (March 3rd) they are advertising the 2-part season finale. Wait just a freakin' minute, YOUR SEASON IS LESS THAN 2 MONTHS LONG??? What the hell is that? I don't feel like watching re-runs of the NINE episodes you aired for the next 6 months. What happened to the 26 episode season? Makes me not want to tune in at all...
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2 comments:
Thank cable and satellite TV, and the relaxed FCC ownership rules. With more competitors in the race, the more they're shuffling everything to keep pace with their rivals. And there are 4 ratings periods a year, so if "Glockenspeil Hour" on A&E beats out "Lost Idol" on Fox for 2 months, everybody scurries like a stomped anthill. Plus, all the smaller niche local stations have been bought out by the behemoths.
More importantly, Hollywood is just stupid and run out of ideas.
Or else they switch nights from Monday to Friday and then spend a month advertising that fact every 20 minutes. Even Dave Letterman has more reruns than a nightly show should. Next thing you know they will repeat the nightly news...oh, wait...don't they do that already??? Or maybe it just seems like it. That plus all the "reality" shows make reading looks all the better.
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