Time to play … Television Math!

[jlh]

Ah spring, when a network's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of reruns. Yes, friends, it's that time of year again, when your favorite network drama seems to go on an endless hiatus. Usually I've written this in a comment here or there, but I'm setting it down, now, in hopes that in later years I can just point to it. Okay, ready? Let's go.

Most network television drama orders are for 22-24 episodes, because dramas are so expensive. In addition, in order to attract top talent, especially actors, to the show you need to give them enough hiatus to do movies and plays and things. Now, a year is 52 weeks long, but the television season runs from mid-September to mid-May, which brings us down to 34 weeks. If a network premieres their new season in mid-September (not all do and we'll talk about that in a moment) then they need to find 10 weeks during the course of the year to run either reruns or special programming like miniseries or sports.

Mucking up the placement of these 10 weeks is something called sweeps. American television networks are made up of a bunch of local stations, one in each of the 212 markets that Nielsen measures, that are paid by the networks to run their shows during prime time. The ratings are made up of a national sample that is distributed among those markets. Now, in very large markets like New York, LA, Chicago or Dallas, the sample size is large enough to have local ratings every day, just like the national sample. But in smaller markets like my hometown of Portland, ratings are measured four times a year during the sweeps. Of course, the local stations want their ratings to be as high as possible during sweeps so they can set higher advertising rates. Those sweeps months are November, February, May, and July.

For our purposes July doesn't matter since it's in the summer. But of those 24 shows, the network has to set aside 12 of them to run during November, February and May. In addition, they will want to run a steady stream of episodes in September and October to get you interested in the show. So that's another oh, 6 episodes for the fall.

How many are left for December, January, March, and April? 6. 6 new episodes for those 16 weeks. Now, Fox has to put everyone on hiatus in October anyway because of post-season baseball. (That's why the first episode of the Simpsons is Treehouse of Terror.) So they get a few more episodes to sprinkle around in April.

So why, you may ask, did we not used to care? Well, TV shows used to be cheaper and have more episodes, and until Stephen Bochco changed TV drama in the early 80s it wasn't as necessary to see them all in order. But now, with the ongoing stories, and the competition from cable channels who don't care about sweeps or even seasons, we need to see things in order, so we care more—so much that Fox starts 24 in January so it can run in straight weeks, no reruns, through the end of the season. And why just dramas? Comedies rarely need to run in sequence, so they rerun better and they're also cheaper to begin with. Reality shows, of course, have shorter seasons and are also cheaper, so they can have two full seasons of Survivor during the course of the regular TV season.

Friends, I know that the endless reruns and alternative programming in the spring is frustrating and tiresome. I watch Veronica Mars, myself, and we're only going to have 20 episodes this year, and we've seen 11 of them, so it's going to be a long spring. But until the economics of network television change dramatically—which will probably happen sooner than anyone is ready for—get used to a March and April of reruns.

I'm going to use the time to uh, do work for school? Eh, I'll just start watching BSG.

Comments

[aome.livejournal.com]

Didn't realize there was another Sweeps period in July - don't usually watch too much TV in the summer.

Although I don't usually watch reruns, I prefer them to "alternative programming" - miniseries, sports, awards, new shows being tried in the timeslot, etc - because sometimes I miss an ep, or (like Grey's Anatomy), start a show mid-season, and it's nice to have the opportunity to catch up. Fewer shows seem to be doing the rerun thing, though - like Lost gave up on it entirely. (And Lost, of all the shows, seemed like it would benefit most from reruns, so you could catch more clues!) Oh well.

Why are dramas more expensive than sitcoms? Because they're usually longer? Or are there other reasons, too?

[ladyjaida.livejournal.com]

Man, I never actually thought about this stuff before. New reasons to do work watch BSG come often enough, but understanding why? Huh.

My only question is--and this is why I don't hate it when American Idol season rolls back around--"And when will there be some Rymon?" But that's generally always my question.

Let's pretend I never even asked.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Adding to memories. I keep trying to explain this to people who are upset with American TV and you've said it all so succinctly.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

You know what's awesome about this? Both Stargate series come back from their six month hiatus in the US in March. If Bones and Supernatural air reruns for some of the first weeks, I'll still only have two shows to remember to watch in a week! Yayz! (Of course, if The Dresden Files is still airing new episodes then, and I'm still watching it, that'll be one more, but who the hell knows what Sci-Fi is going to do with their programming from one moment to the next.)

I am accentuating the positive. *beams*

[jlh.livejournal.com]

Dramas usually have much larger casts and higher production values, with more filming on location rather than on pre-built sets in the studio. Sitcoms keep it simple because rather than being taped they are usually filmed live, using just three cameras, in front of a studio audience. Think of Friends—how often were they anyplace other than Monica's apt, Joey's apt, Ross's apt, or Central Perk? And they had 6 central characters, sort of a big cast. Dramas have huge casts and they're on film (more expensive than video) and huge built sets and tricky camera work and all kinds of business and yes, because they are longer they have a longer shooting schedule (usually 8 working days per ep, while a sitcom cranks an ep out every week).

Reruns have a much lower rating, MUCH, and not just because of TIVOs, because they don't have a high enough penetration to affect things that much. Reruns of shows like Lost apparently confuse people because suddenly they're seeing something old, which is why 24 has no reruns. And in my experience? They always rerun the eps you saw and never the ones you missed!

[jlh.livejournal.com]

It's really all about cable. There are no reruns, but there are endless re-airs of this weeks show, like, 25 times a week. They do their shows on the cheap, and they run them solid because they don't care about sweeps or seasons or any of it.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Both Stargate series

April.

[scrabble.livejournal.com]

It is not these hiatuses that bother me. It's the cable shows that go on their ridiculously lengthy ones. Alas, for those make up half the television I watch. When VM went on hiatus, I started watching Dexter, which now won't be back until October. Weeds won't be back until July, I think. By October, am I really going to be interested in Dexter? Probably not.

[mahoni.livejournal.com]

DANG. Did they slide the date, or have I been indulging in wishful thinking all this time?

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Primal scream. (http://shusu.livejournal.com/909396.html)

[sisterpandora.livejournal.com]

Come to the darkside BSG, we have more clones. ;)

[fiona-fawkes.livejournal.com]

I was linked here from another comment thread. Thank you so much for putting that all together for us. It makes so much more sense now.