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
Syndication is selling the show for airing as re-runs. So a show airs on a major network, once a week on a set day/time, with typically 22 new episodes a season. Seasons run basically school year, like Sep – May. Typically, for a show to be viable for re-runs, it needed 100 episodes, so mid-way through season 5.
Once there are the 100 episodes, the show can be sold to air on other channels, because they’re typically run daily or even in blocks of multiple episodes a day. So when a cable channel like TBS or a local TV channel buys rights to Friends, they might run 3 episodes a day, airing at 6pm, 9pm and 11pm. Or might run 2 episodes of Seinfeld at 5pm and 5:30pm every day/every weekday.
The ability to widely resell a show means a big, new revenue stream for the production company who owns the show, as popular shows may air in perpetuity on various channels. Shows like Brady Bunch or All in the Family went off the air 40+ years ago and are still aired on TV.
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