What's the deal with Fox?

polktiger

We have 2 "main stream" shows that are watched regularly - Bones and Smarter than 5th Grader. But Fox has gotten completely unreliable with their programming line up over the last 2 months. They completely dropped Bones (well moved it to Thursday @ 8:00 and have shown it once it 2 months) and 5th Grader is either a re-run or is dropped as well?

Are other channels like this? If we are not watching these 2 shows we are watching TNT (Law & Order,) FX (whatever movie is on), or History Channel, or Fox News. Their schedules are all regular and reliable.

DollarDave

Yes, they all seem to be doing it. I'm subjected to Grey's Anatomy once a week and I swear it is re-runs at least 1/2 the time. They move House every so often. I haven't seen a new Boston Legal forever, etc, etc. It sucks. Now, football is all but over...damn, I'll have to get up off the couch.

tryrrthg

That's how they killed "Arrested Development", which was one of my favorites shows on TV.

steveinaz

Summer is no longer exclusively "re-run" season like it used to be.

sucks2beme

What is a season? I don't think I've watched a "first run" show in years.
Crap I've never heard of is in constant re-runs. And If there is a show
you might want to see, it drops off the face of the earth after you watch
two episodes. And there must be, what, 3,000,000 episodes of CSI? You'd
think so the way they run it. If it wasn't for UFC, I'd throw the damn set out.

bobman1235

It is very annoying. The excuse is usually that they want the show to be "new" on certain days and during certain weeks because of "sweeps" and all that nonsense. Since most shows only film 18 or 22 episodes, and the traditional "season" is far longer than 18 or 22 weeks, it means a lot of breaks and reruns. It's become more and more irrelevant in the modern era, as the traditional "season" is all but meaningless, as are sweeps weeks and stuff, but it seems like program directors haven't quite caught up and realized this yet.

But it's obviously possible to schedule a show straight through and still have it work for them. Look at 24. One of the more popular series on TV. They didn't debut the new season until January because they specifically wanted to run it straight through, no repeats, no breaks.

obieone

22 episodes? Last I heard, everyone made only 13 per year? Especially if the lead is making $1M per episode, there's only so much advertising you can sell.

bobman1235

Depends on the show. Lots of shows do 12 or 13 (in particular most of the cable series, like everything on F/X, Mad Men, The Wire, Sopranos, etc). Most NETWORK shows do 22 episodes - sometimes 18 if the order is reduced or whatever. For example, look at the aforementioned Bones - 22 episodes (ish) every year but the strike year.

Half-hour comedies are a little different, but most of the hour-longs are 22-episode seasons.

AsSiMiLaTeD

It's a rough life I tell ya...

Pablo

There seems to be very few networks or shows that seem to run the "season" without shoving a repeats in the middle. FX seems to show stuff without interuption, but the "seasons" aren't really all that long (and they have a ton of shows). FX seems to use Thursday night at 10:00 to be thier main show time and there is rarely a break in the show (the holidays had breaks, but that was about it).

For network stuff, I think 24 was the only show that was shown without a repeat or break (they advertised that last year, but not this year).