americans are the worst people. they are so conceited they would
rather spit on you than help you out.
i spent last weekend building a house for habitat for humanity. this saturday
i'm going to prepare baskets of food for 400 disadvantaged families. i live in
california.
edit: personally, in my tv collection, i label the british shows by series and
the american ones by season. i also don't really mind the breaks in seasons, as
it is better to not have to wait a whole year for a show to come back after
only getting around 6-12 episodes.
[#8373]
Written by: ABennett [13/12/2006, 18:55]
ok, enough of the flaming and attacks on nationalities. keep this discussion to
the breaks that shows take, or get yourselves banned.
the main reason us shows take breaks is, naturally, for ratings and money. in
america they have boxes (as they do in many countries) which monitor viewing
habits and generate ratings. this happens all year round and is used to sell
advertising.
every so often they run what are known as sweeps periods. during these periods,
diaries are sent out to many thousands more households who are paid to fill in
their viewing habits. this leads to more reliable ratings data, particularly
for smaller areas where the small number of boxes cannot be considered a
representative sample.
so sweeps periods are exceptionally important to networks, and especially the
smaller network affiliates, because they set the major ad buy rates for upcoming
seasons.
the two biggest sweeps periods are november and may. november sets rates for
the start of the following year, while may sets rates for the new shows starting
in the fall season. getting the highest possible ratings during these periods
is paramount to success for a network, and they pull out all stops with
specials, long episodes, guest stars, gimmick episodes, crossover episodes etc.
now, that brings us to the question at hand - why break? well the only way for
a show to start in the fall season, and have its finale in may, is to take
breaks. so for the networks to "hit" the big two sweeps periods, they need to
spread the episodes out - either by mixing old and new episodes (like lost last
year) or by taking a big long break over christmas (like lost this year).
that's the long and the short of it.
[#8380]
Written by: stdesy [13/12/2006, 21:03]
i'm probably going to get banned for saying this, but i didn't flame anyone,
just listed a couple of my charitable acts in a response to a rude person.
back to the discussion about the breaks, however: have you noticed that shows
are trending to the long break format rather than the re-run format? i don't
know why they are doing it as it costs them more money to produce more content,
but i'm glad it is opening space for more shows to have network airtime. for
example, daybreak is a great show that we'd have never seen if abc continued
with the standard practice of airing re-runs.
perhaps the shift away from reruns is indicative of the way tv dramas have been
drifting away from the concept of self-contained episodes to more of a
continuous, large-arc format. prison break, for example would make no sense with
episodes plucked out of the middle of the season for re-air.
personally, i think the way 24 operates is the best way to go. forget about one
of the sweep periods and just run the entire thing for 20 weeks in a row. sort
of combines the american long seasons and the british penchant for no breaks in
a "series".
[#8381]
Written by: ABennett [13/12/2006, 21:07]
my comment was a general one to all readers stdesy, wasn't meant to be aimed at
you and your post was perfectly fine.
