Television needs an overhaul.

[Eternal Padawan]

The four and a half major networks still cling to this archaic notion of a "Fall Season" on television when it has clearly been morphing into a year round prospect brought on by the advent of so many cable networks ushering in shorter "seasons" of quality programming. FX has The Shield, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, etc. USA gives us Monk and Psyche, Sci-Fi has the completely awesome BSG. Not to mention all the terrific stuff you find on HBO. The list goes on and on. Most of these programs are on a rotation that allows for a short set of episodes between 8 and 13 episodes long, then they go on "hiatus" while the next show comes in. With 52 weeks in a year, that allows for 4 "seasons" of four different shows.

And yet the major networks still insist on "full" seasons of 22-24 episodes that they try and stretch from September through until May sweeps. Usually the season is rife with repeats sporadically peppered throughout the year with no rhyme or reason, infuriating regular viewers and making it difficult for new viewers to follow along because if irregularities. Thus making episodic television look like a pisspoor investment and relying instead on short run "reality shows" which are cheap and quick to produce and fill in wherever they have a hole in their programming schedule as long as they heavily promote it in the five weeks leading up to it.

So why don't they realize that most people aren't watching TV like they used to 20 years ago and start producing more compact seasons of better produced shows, running them with out reruns, and then moving onto the next show a few months later? Some networks are attempting this ( Fox most notably with 24 and PrisonBreak, ABC with upcoming seasons of Lost) but for the most part they are still stuck in the 50's- 80's mentality that people take the summer off from television and come back when school starts. And when their "numbers" refelct that people aren't interested in one show ALL YEAR, then erroneously believe that people are clamoring for dirty cheap reality programming.

I fucking HATE reality programming.

So maybe have a fall season, take a few weeks off for Christmas so you can play Rudolph, It's a Wonderful Life, and Celine Dion's Christmas in Vegas specials, then give us a winter season that wraps up around your precious May sweeps, then a summer season. Each "season" consists of shorter episode runs, and you have fresh content all year long. No more reruns, and no more reality TV.

[jjreason]

Good idea. With the advent of TiVo (and it's derivatives), TV is now pretty much on demand anyhow. The idea of having shows run from September to May is outdated.... the other big problem you didn't mention is scheduling changes. What a pain in the ass, finding out you missed Gilmore Girls - errrr, I mean your wife missed Gilmore Girls - because it's gone from Sundays to Mondays, 9pm to 10pm or what have you. Frustrating.

I think the dirty plan the networks have (have always had) is to play reruns without much fanfare - so that you plan on watching at a certain time each week. Then, when it IS a rerun, you're at least 40-50% going to watch some of it, catching half the commercials (which is all this tv nonsense is about, anyhow).

How HBO makes its shows without them is beyond me.... is it because people pay them directly for the service, so they don't need to whore themselves out? Watching a whole show with no commercials is amazing.

[kidhuman]

Thats pretty much it on HBO. Since it is a Pay Per View type system, fuck the Commercials. HBO is also the most expensive out of the 4 Major Premium Channels(Starz, Cinemax, Showtime) because it produces shows like Deadwood, Rome, The Wire, etc.


Regular TV sucks ass. People go all ballistic over their local channels. Fuck em. Could you imagine if every thing just went the way of Cable or Satellite TV? You would have utter chaos. Local Channels suck ass, they have 1 or 2 good shows at most on any major network:

NBC: Heroes, Scrubs
Fox: 24
ABC: ??? I hate ABC
CBS: another one i dont watch crap on.
WB/UPN/CW: ?????

With my DVR, I dont watch shit in real time. The only show I watched in real time was Heroes, because I taped 24 which is on the same time and night. I hate commercials, I hate pretty much everything about TV except HBO really and Heroes. If a show interests me, I can wait 6 months and buy the fuckin DVD set.

[Inktomi Slurp Spider]

Slurp, Slurp.