The way I understood it, once a show reaches 4 seasons, it’s deemed profitable or at least worthy of reruns? Why/how?
I’m not american if that’s relevant.
In: Economics
Traditionally with US television networks, they buy a show from a production company. The production company could have the same parent company or they could be separate.
Usually, if the network likes an idea, they give the production company enough money to create a sample show of the idea. That’s called a pilot.
If the network likes the pilot, they’ll order more episodes of the show. Usually for broadcast network TV in America (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, CW), that’s about half of a season, 12 more episodes for 13 total. The network will schedule the show on their calendar and promote it.
If the show does well enough with viewers watching (or the network believes in the show), the network orders more episodes to be produced; traditionally 9 – 13 more episodes to make a full season. So after the first season, the show produces 22 – 26 episodes. The network will air these episodes over the course of a broadcast year. The contract with the production company will determine how many times the network can broadcast the show in that year.
If the network is happy with the show, they’ll do what’s called a renewal. They’ll order more episodes of the next television season. Generally, it’ll be enough new shows for a full season of 22 – 26 episodes. That allows the production company to write new episodes and make sure the actors are available for producing new episodes. If the network doesn’t want the show anymore, they “cancel” it and usually the production company stops making the show.
This becomes the cycle of a series. The network pays for more episodes for new seasons.
But here’s the catch: traditionally, the network didn’t pay the production company enough money for make a profit for the series. Usually the network pays for the series at cost or below and the production company absorbs that difference. But the production company owns the show, not the broadcast network.
When the show had reached 4 seasons, traditionally that means that show has 88 – 104 episodes produced. The network might renew it for another season, which would be the fifth. The production company has episodes at this point that local stations, looking for programming, might want to show this series. If the show has 104 episodes; and local stations are planning to air the show once every weekday, that means that the show can air for almost 21 weeks without having to repeat an episode. The local stations are willing to pay for that privilege because the network show has a fanbase who want to see the old episodes the network is no longer broadcasting.
So the production company usually partners with a company who has the ability to distribute the show to all the local TV stations that want to pay to broadcast the show. That company is called a Syndicator. Usually the deals are written so that as new episodes are produced, eventually the production company will get money for those episodes when they are added to the package until the network no longer wants to pay to produce new episodes of the series (or the production company decides to stop producing the series due to a variety of reasons like the cast no longer wanting to make the show or the cost of making the show exceed the benefit of syndicating the new episodes).
This is what syndication is. Selling the show to individual shows to the stations so they’ll have content to broadcast.
In addition, some shows are produced just to be sold to individual stations without ever being on a broadcast network. Shows like Family Feud, Jeopardy, The Kelly Clarkson Show, TMZ, and Entertainment Tonight are created as original episodes and sold by the syndicators to local stations.
I wrote “traditionally” because the original model changed; first due to cable networks getting broadcast rights to these shows, and now streaming outlets buying rights too. Those models work similarly to the syndication model in that they pay for broadcast rights for the episodes, but differently because they might air the episodes a lot more than the local stations. And those outlets having the episodes make them worth less to the local stations because they aren’t the exclusive broadcast of the show in their market because viewers can see the show on cable or on-demand on a streamer.
So syndication is a lot more complicated these days than it was once upon a time when a show like Star Trek and The Brady Bunch would become a big hit in syndication after not being successful as a broadcast network show.
Also, a lot of shows, especially originals for cable and streamers only produce 8 – 13 episodes a year. That means fewer episodes produced and fewer to sell on the syndication market.
Latest Answers