Mid Season Breaks

[Llamatron]

Why do American TV series have mid season breaks?

Smallville stopped over Christmas. Batttlestar Galactica did the same, came back for one episode and has had another week break. And Lost, wow, Lost stopped for over two months. It annoys the hell out me, it must drive our cousins across the pond insane.

[vehelpfulguy]

We have the same sort of thing over here.

There are basically 4 "seasons" on British TV, 12 weeks each.

You will note for example that weekly series all tend to stop just before Xmas (Torchwood for example).

Then a new season of shows starts in the new year.

Also at the end of the summer holiday, and start of Autumn, another new season starts.

If you buy one of the TV listings magazines they often talk about the "new season" of programs at certain times of the year.

I also think that American TV tends to milk their shows.

Over here we often have series that last 6 weeks. You can fit 2 series in a 12 week season.

But US series just seem to go on and on and on. I think they try to keep them running to maximize the advertiaing.

If you compare fawlty towers, where we only ever made 12 episodes, to Friends, where they made about 200.

[Goodsoulette]

I know with Lost, they knew people were itching to see it, so they threw the first 6 episodes into production to knock them out really quickly but obviously couldnt get the 20 odd out for a whole season it such a short space of time.

[Mattk]

i disagree that we do the same here.in the u.s. they stop mid-series eg Lost 6 episodes made and broadcast and then nothing for 3 months whereas in the u.k. our series are shown in one long run.

[Llamatron]

Our TV series tend to be dead short.
Maybe the Americans like to take a bit of a holiday half way through their 22 week run.

I used to think that it was because they started showing them long before filming had been completed and they just couldn't make the episodes as quickly as they were being broadcast. The break was so they could catch up.