Sunday, May 18, 2008

On Season and Mid-Season Finales

Anyone else tired of the way networks program television shows anymore? They can't keep a schedule for anything - they skip weeks, elongate episodes, mix up the order of episodes (for those who still bothered to watch the series finale of Scrubs, did they think that would make any sense?). It is really infuriating not to be able to follow your shows from week-to-week. It seems a little worse because of the breaks due to the writer's strike, but it has been going on for a while now and I don't understand the business model.

The SciFi Channel has long drew my disdain for their ridiculous tinkering of the weeknight line-up. The Stargate shows are by far my favorite, but SciFi makes it hard to follow with "mid-season" cliff-hangers, followed by a few months off before they return to regular programming. By the time you get into the full swing of the show, it ends for several months. I don't have a link, but I have read their reason to be an effort to keep new episodes running year-round. Which to me, seems like staggering the season start of different shows would do the trick.

What is the economic or business model that explains this behavior?

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