What is syndication and why did tv shows used to pump out so many episodes trying to get it?
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Originally (1940s-late 1950s or early 1960s) TV shows were shown just for that time slot. They would perform many of them live and not record them. They’d do 2 performances—one for the east coast and then a few hours later another live performance for the west coast. They were lost to time, not having been recorded. Eventually they did start recording them (I Love Lucy was one of the first) but there wasn’t a plan to do anything with them later. Recording just made it easier to show on the west coast without having to re-perform it. And then they could do re-runs later in the year. But because they used to do all the shows live, they did a lot of shows—like 36 shows a year, as compared to modern 22 shows or less/year.
Then, in the 1960s, they found a lucrative new way to make money—they would show old TV shows on another channel. To do this they would bundle up the existing shows and sell the rights to air them. There were only 3 channels but then they started expanding to new channels on UHF—these were channels larger than number 13. All the regular channels of NBC, CBS, and DuMont, then later ABC, were on channels 2 – 13. The UHF channels tended to have independent stations, not networks. They’d show local, cheap programming. Bad movies. Local news. Reruns purchased to be syndicated to these smaller channels.
Once the financial rewards of syndication were known, it was soon discovered that 5 seasons provided a good number of episodes for a syndication package, so often networks would continue to pay for shows to get to that 5th season so they’d have a lucrative package. Other shows that are shorter do syndicate, but might not get as good of a financial offer for it.
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