I Think TV Seasons Need To Be Shorter

Why, do you ask, that I think TV Series Seasons Need To Be Shorter?  Because of how TV ratings seem to sag in the middle of it a season, and how sometimes shows are chopped off at the knees from bad ratings.  On top of that, shows seem to have a solid mid-season ratings resurgence when they take breaks.

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Have you ever noticed that our fellow TV fans on the other side of the pond have shorter TV seasons than we do?  And they call them series instead of seasons.  What's up with that?  My suspicion, is that shorter TV seasons is a combination of TV ratings and costs. 

In the U.S., we used to have 24-episode seasons and they ran straight through.  But now-a-days, a 24 episode run is a lofty number that we ask the networks to commit to.  Now-a-days, networks are more ratings-responsive (read as knee-jerk) than ever before.

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As anyone who follows my site(s) knows, I have a particularly "constructive" perspective about TV ratings. 

Ratings are intricately related to advertisers as they use various ratings metrics to decide when and where to spend their seasonal $20 billion budget.  (Yes, advertisers drop $20B a season on the those loud TV ads. 

And they do it because is works. But that's another story for another day.)  The better the ratings, the more money they drop on a given TV series.

Case in point, advertisers fall all over themselves to get advertisements for their products run during reality TV shows like Survivor, Amazing Race, The Voice, or scripted dramas like NCIS and Castle.  These shows get the eyeballs, and adverts want those eyeballs exposed to their brainwashing...  I mean TV ads.

But there's always an interesting problem with TV ratings, and I'm not talking about the most popular TV series, but the other 2nd string-like rated TV series.  That is when a show premieres for the first time and gets good ratings numbers, that's great.  But traditionally, once the public has sampled a TV show premiere, usually ratings numbers drop by up to 20% for the subsequent episode, and such.

TV ratings fluctuate via viewers viewing habits.  Season premieres always draw the numbers in, as do season and/or series finales.  But then suddenly, the live or "live +7" numbers start to sag.

My guess is folks are starting to lean more towards VoD or even weaning themselves off of the tube and renting or buying TV seasons with they come to market.

But as it goes, there have been too many times I see series finales get great ratings especially compared to its regular episode ratings.  But then fans lament why the show is going away, when in fact, their own viewing habits doomed the show.  As least as the advertisers see the numbers and make business decisions based on those numbers.  And TV networks can't make TV shows for free.

But...

Have you noticed of late, the latest trend with the "mid-season" breaks for TV shows? 

Yea... I find it as annoying as hell actually and don't get me started on packaging a full season into two different packages on store shelves. 

But this mid-season break crap works because when a popular series returns from its mid-season break, the viewership numbers explode for that mid-season premiere.  Premieres are special and are valued by the fans it seems and they give production studios the impetus to either create a slightly more special mid-season episode or at least market the crap out of it for a month or so, building up the interest for the break-returning episode.

Either way, networks and adverts are taking advantage of that mindset to help their clients.

Other perspectives about the short British series is that folks would rather have shorter, high quality stories rather than long, drawn out series with dribble on with filler content.

Case in point that comes to mind was the latest rendition of Torchwood on Starz, Miracle Day, where it had way too much content that did not seem to further the story but just kill time.  The same could be said about almost the entire second season of AMC's The Killing.

But there is an argument that UK series are short because they're government funded from licensing fees (That's an annual fee charged to anyone who owns a TV in Britain ) and not advertisers.

Or that the UK doesn't focus on syndication like the U.S. does?

Eh, who knows.

But back to the original question, and that's would shorter TV seasons help sell better TV ratings?  It's a conjectural question that will probably not see the light of day, but if there's any substance of a suggestion, I'm thinking the mid-season breaks might be a clue.

Of course, in this day and age when everything is recorded electronically anyway, I keep wondering how the Nielsen system is surviving the technology change?  But that's for another day/piece.

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