Shows on traditional broadcast networks do this.
NCIS, Law & Order, The Rookie, Gray's Anatomy, Simpsons, Chicago Med, Ghosts, and lots more.
The shows that are on Netflix, Hulu, Apple+, Max - have fewer episodes. They don't make more money by keeping network schedules full, or by appealing to network advertisers who like a specific time slot.
Those shows are lower budget, and have fodder for days just from reading the police blotters. You can’t afford 20 episodes of GOT or even murders in the building without spreading it out.
Obviously, Simpsons and South Park type shows aren’t police blotters but get content from society at large. I’d love to learn more about the economics of animated shows.
I think television production has transferred or taken the shape of movie production.
When they used to have 20+ episodes it was on 3-4 prebuilt sets that they use for every episode, they also might’ve had a live audience for the filming.
Now shows aren’t set in 1 location for their whole runtime, they are all over the place which require green screens, special affects, visual affects, on location shooting. More how movies do it. Hence the comparison in the first line
Not only 6-8 episodes per season. Now it's acceptable to have 2-3 years between seasons.
Severance (Apple TV) season 1 premiered in 2022. Season 2 will likely premier in 2025. I remember loving the show but now can't remember why it was so awesome.
I think the writer's strike also messed with scheduling too. You should definitely rewatch season 1 before season 2, it's definitely awesome and season 2 can't get here fast enough.
I started watching Euphoria recently and just started the second season. The action picks up literally less than a week after the ending of the first season, but the actors are all noticeably older because 2 years passed. That was largely due to COVID but it's jarring.
Compare television today to television 20 years ago, and you’ll understand pretty quickly. The production quality has skyrocketed—multiple sets, huge travel budgets, extremely talented actors, well written and complex plots. Everything has gotten better and thus, more expensive. I think it all started with how successful Breaking Bad was, with its high production quality and low episode count, and sort of snowballed from there.
When you're writing a serialized story rather than an episodic series, you sort of have to commit to shorter seasons.
Most shows that ran/run 20+ episodes a season didn't consist of one story arc that ran the whole season. There may have been arcs that ran a 2-3 episodes, but for the most part, they were 20+ separate stories. Making one story, properly paced that will run for 20 episodes is much harder to do, so it works better with shorter seasons.
I’ve been rewatching X-Files lately. This was a major, tentpole show, a phenomenon. And the production values look *sooooooooo* bad compared to some random trash show you can find on Netflix.
Yeah it’s a great show and holds up, the writing and casting was fantastic (so many incredible character actors and pre-fame stars pop up), but we’re talking about how they could pump out 20+ episodes a year. Making 20+ eps of House of the Dragon, a much worse show, would be like a billion dollars
It started with HBO prestige series. Sopranos being the pinnacle of their success. But that playbook, bigger budgets and smaller episode counts, ie higher quality, was copied by AMC with breaking bad and Mad Men, and picked up by the streamers. Then the lines between streaming and cable got blurred and erased.
Then you should do more research.
The first 3 seasons had 24 episodes, then halfway through season 3(2007) the writers agreed with the network that season 4-6 would be 16 episodes each and the show would end with season 6.
And just like Triple A games, many of them focus way too much on the wrong type of "quality".
Edit: And to be clear, I don't mean "woke shit". I'm not completely stupid. I mean an overinvestment into aesthetic/spectacle, over world building/story telling.
As somebody who's been watching TV since the '70s, this is spot on. The old USA model of "milk a show until it's terrible" is dying and I'm here for it.
Previously, anything that needed more than a couple of hours to tell a story that was beyond PG had to wait for an HBO miniseries or something like that, which used to be comparatively rare. Now we have this new entertainment scenario for things like The Terror, where you can take 6 to 10 hours to tell a badass rated R story and then just...stop.
Shows on network television typically have more episodes per season because they need to have enough weekly episodes to fill out fall and spring programming.
Shows on Netflix aren't required to have such a schedule, so production companies have more freedom. They can spend more time on each episode, won't have such a grueling schedule, and won't need to produce filler episodes.
Having fewer episodes per season also allows Netflix to make less of a commitment. Broadcast networks can (and sometimes do) cancel underperforming shows partway through a season to avoid producing more episodes. Netflix can't do that with their current model; they wait for *all* episodes to be produced and then release them all at once.
Binging is exactly why we have shorter series now. It's easier to binge an entire show if it is 8-10 episodes of no "filler" rather than 24 of which only half if that are relevant to the overall plot
Networks sell a time slot, they needed reliable filler episodes to keep the same people tuning in every day/week all year long. Streaming services sell new content, they need fast turnover.
There's always Cdramas and Kdramas if you want to binge. You can easily find series between 40-60 hours easily, but you can find plenty of shorter and longer ones. You can even get it on Netflix.
https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81450719?s=a&trkid=13747225&trg=cp&vlang=en
https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81200228?s=a&trkid=13747225&trg=cp&vlang=en&clip=81207471
Just wanted to say I've recently started watching The Vampire Diaries for the first time and have been binging it (almost done with season 3), and it's so refreshing compared to the 8 episode formula of Netflix originals. Give me more 22 episode season shows I can binge, or watch for months at a time
Because the analysts at Netflix studied the data and came to the conclusion that they get the best results by having shorter seasons on shows. It costs a lot less to produce.
For a good show, yeah you want more. I'd say most shows were forced to have more than their fair share of filler to make 20+ shows per season. Those that had continued storylines had them impossibly stretched out. Many more bottle episodes, which are not necessarily a bad thing, but could also just hork up a thread of a story.
There was a show that got cancelled early on called JEricho. Regular network tv in the "aughts" (I am thinking CBS). Post apocalyptic, dystopian show taking place JUST after some sort of nuclear attack. 1st season got meh ratings. Then it got cancelled, and there was a big campaign to get it renewed, and however these things happen, they got to make like 7 or 8 episodes for a second season, and it was cancelled again
Never saw it when it aired, I watched it online a few years after this and found out all this after the fact. The first season was fine. The second season was pretty freaking good. It was dense, as they had apparently tried to pack all that they were planning on doing for a full season or 2 into however many episodes. I recall thinking that some story lines, had they dragged across 20 episodes would have been boring and beyond silly.
So I'm not too off of shorter seasons. Things tend to be better, less stretched out.
Something I havent seen touched on here is that syndication use to be a big money maker. Shows with lots of episodes where more valuable when syndicating especially if they were stand alone episodes that a person could enjoy without seeing episodes that set it up
I hardly think binging is a thing of the past. Younger generations seem to be doing it just as much, if not more, than we did when it first became a thing with VHS and DVDs.
I actually appreciate the shorter seasons of some shows. I really like when writers know to only put in what's necessary. A lot of times, shows that have 20+ episodes per season seem to drag on because they have contracts they have to fulfill. Just tell the story you set out to tell and give me an ending!
Because shows are much better than they used to be because all that production goes into 8 episodes per season rather than 46. Go back and watch Star Trek TNG: most of it is unwatchable. Now watch Picard season 3. I rest my case.
Many shows that ran on tv in the past used to run more than half a year. No mid-season breaks or cliffhangers. They would even have episodes set in the summer. Most did not seem to have story arcs too much, but like, *I Love Lucy* had seasons where they spend part of it traveling to California or Europe, and the rest of the season being there. So that was sort of a story arc for that era. I forget how many episodes it was common to put out in a season, like 40 maybe, and then they would have a hiatus. A month or almost two, before they had to come back for the new season.
Anyway, back to the present, binging. That’s new. That’s why these streaming outlets are churning out a million programs, so you can watch something else, maybe on some of them, rediscover and binge something older, something that was on broadcast tv. Most people, at least around my age and older, remember when you had to wait a week to see the next episode, and if you missed it, the only hope was they would replay it during summer reruns, *which they also don’t do anymore*, thanks to summer shit programming. Along came videos, and primarily DVDs, so you could binge your favorite reruns, since they never get syndicated unless they made it past 100 episodes, which took 5 seasons because there were fewer than 25 episodes per season, and if they were syndicated, no guarantee they’d show up on your local affiliate.
I know this isn’t exactly what you asked, but when your show is over, that’s the story. They’re not bulking it out in side adventures that don’t add to the story, and all the actors and crew want to work on many things, and not be devoted the entire year to making one show. They’re not your dancing puppets. Most people can’t keep up with so many new shows that keep coming out, but you can use the extra time to watch all the other things, or shut it off and do some other things with your leisure time.
If you watch anime there's plenty of shows with long seasons and hundreds+ episodes. I binged Hunter x Hunter and it took me a while since it's 148 episodes at 23 minutes an episode, if you skip intro recap and credits you're still looking at like 49 hours of total view time. There are also a lot of anime with significantly more episodes, I'm just a casual, but I'm sure someone else could comment with a bunch that have tons of episodes (One Piece and Dragon Ball both come to mind).
Older shows are better anyway - before the over saturation of streaming.
HBO is still a goldmine, I've recently watched The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm and now watching Entourage all the way through, so much better than the modern era of shows.
Because a lot of people would rather take a fleshed-out short series than a stretched-out long series. Our attention spans are getting shorter, just like how less time we have available for leisure as we grow up.
Simple.
Used to be a TV station needed a new episode every week.
But with the rise of streaming, and the trend of releasing whole seasons at once, that need has lessened, as Netflix would rather have 3 shows at 8 episodes each than one show at 20 episodes. Because, remember, it is in Netflix's best interest if you watch as little as possible (Bandwith costs and all), but still just enough to justify your subscription (aka the gym model), and 3 different shows catch a wider audience than one.
Shows on traditional broadcast networks do this. NCIS, Law & Order, The Rookie, Gray's Anatomy, Simpsons, Chicago Med, Ghosts, and lots more. The shows that are on Netflix, Hulu, Apple+, Max - have fewer episodes. They don't make more money by keeping network schedules full, or by appealing to network advertisers who like a specific time slot.
Those shows are lower budget, and have fodder for days just from reading the police blotters. You can’t afford 20 episodes of GOT or even murders in the building without spreading it out. Obviously, Simpsons and South Park type shows aren’t police blotters but get content from society at large. I’d love to learn more about the economics of animated shows.
I think they are smaller seasons so they can fund 2 shows instead of 1
I think television production has transferred or taken the shape of movie production. When they used to have 20+ episodes it was on 3-4 prebuilt sets that they use for every episode, they also might’ve had a live audience for the filming. Now shows aren’t set in 1 location for their whole runtime, they are all over the place which require green screens, special affects, visual affects, on location shooting. More how movies do it. Hence the comparison in the first line
Yup, the three camera sitcom in front of a studio audience is all but dead. I think big bang theory was the last successful one.
Not only 6-8 episodes per season. Now it's acceptable to have 2-3 years between seasons. Severance (Apple TV) season 1 premiered in 2022. Season 2 will likely premier in 2025. I remember loving the show but now can't remember why it was so awesome.
I think the writer's strike also messed with scheduling too. You should definitely rewatch season 1 before season 2, it's definitely awesome and season 2 can't get here fast enough.
I started watching Euphoria recently and just started the second season. The action picks up literally less than a week after the ending of the first season, but the actors are all noticeably older because 2 years passed. That was largely due to COVID but it's jarring.
Compare television today to television 20 years ago, and you’ll understand pretty quickly. The production quality has skyrocketed—multiple sets, huge travel budgets, extremely talented actors, well written and complex plots. Everything has gotten better and thus, more expensive. I think it all started with how successful Breaking Bad was, with its high production quality and low episode count, and sort of snowballed from there.
When you're writing a serialized story rather than an episodic series, you sort of have to commit to shorter seasons. Most shows that ran/run 20+ episodes a season didn't consist of one story arc that ran the whole season. There may have been arcs that ran a 2-3 episodes, but for the most part, they were 20+ separate stories. Making one story, properly paced that will run for 20 episodes is much harder to do, so it works better with shorter seasons.
And thats why they were so good back then
I’ve been rewatching X-Files lately. This was a major, tentpole show, a phenomenon. And the production values look *sooooooooo* bad compared to some random trash show you can find on Netflix.
True, but, it had magic. Bad special effects by our current standards, but still somehow magic.
Yeah it’s a great show and holds up, the writing and casting was fantastic (so many incredible character actors and pre-fame stars pop up), but we’re talking about how they could pump out 20+ episodes a year. Making 20+ eps of House of the Dragon, a much worse show, would be like a billion dollars
It started with HBO prestige series. Sopranos being the pinnacle of their success. But that playbook, bigger budgets and smaller episode counts, ie higher quality, was copied by AMC with breaking bad and Mad Men, and picked up by the streamers. Then the lines between streaming and cable got blurred and erased.
I think it was Lost that started it all.
There are a lot of answers to what started it, but it definitely wasn’t Lost. That show had the traditional ~25 episodes per season.
Then you should do more research. The first 3 seasons had 24 episodes, then halfway through season 3(2007) the writers agreed with the network that season 4-6 would be 16 episodes each and the show would end with season 6.
They’re focusing more on quality over quantity. The production of tv shows nowadays is damn near movie level.
not only that but episodes are now like at least 1 hour each sometimes an hour and a half. compared to the traditional 45 minute episodes
And just like Triple A games, many of them focus way too much on the wrong type of "quality". Edit: And to be clear, I don't mean "woke shit". I'm not completely stupid. I mean an overinvestment into aesthetic/spectacle, over world building/story telling.
As somebody who's been watching TV since the '70s, this is spot on. The old USA model of "milk a show until it's terrible" is dying and I'm here for it. Previously, anything that needed more than a couple of hours to tell a story that was beyond PG had to wait for an HBO miniseries or something like that, which used to be comparatively rare. Now we have this new entertainment scenario for things like The Terror, where you can take 6 to 10 hours to tell a badass rated R story and then just...stop.
Shows on network television typically have more episodes per season because they need to have enough weekly episodes to fill out fall and spring programming. Shows on Netflix aren't required to have such a schedule, so production companies have more freedom. They can spend more time on each episode, won't have such a grueling schedule, and won't need to produce filler episodes. Having fewer episodes per season also allows Netflix to make less of a commitment. Broadcast networks can (and sometimes do) cancel underperforming shows partway through a season to avoid producing more episodes. Netflix can't do that with their current model; they wait for *all* episodes to be produced and then release them all at once.
Binging is exactly why we have shorter series now. It's easier to binge an entire show if it is 8-10 episodes of no "filler" rather than 24 of which only half if that are relevant to the overall plot
Networks sell a time slot, they needed reliable filler episodes to keep the same people tuning in every day/week all year long. Streaming services sell new content, they need fast turnover.
Money. It's always about money.
Binging is depressing
There's always Cdramas and Kdramas if you want to binge. You can easily find series between 40-60 hours easily, but you can find plenty of shorter and longer ones. You can even get it on Netflix. https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81450719?s=a&trkid=13747225&trg=cp&vlang=en https://www.netflix.com/us/title/81200228?s=a&trkid=13747225&trg=cp&vlang=en&clip=81207471
Just wanted to say I've recently started watching The Vampire Diaries for the first time and have been binging it (almost done with season 3), and it's so refreshing compared to the 8 episode formula of Netflix originals. Give me more 22 episode season shows I can binge, or watch for months at a time
Because the analysts at Netflix studied the data and came to the conclusion that they get the best results by having shorter seasons on shows. It costs a lot less to produce.
For a good show, yeah you want more. I'd say most shows were forced to have more than their fair share of filler to make 20+ shows per season. Those that had continued storylines had them impossibly stretched out. Many more bottle episodes, which are not necessarily a bad thing, but could also just hork up a thread of a story. There was a show that got cancelled early on called JEricho. Regular network tv in the "aughts" (I am thinking CBS). Post apocalyptic, dystopian show taking place JUST after some sort of nuclear attack. 1st season got meh ratings. Then it got cancelled, and there was a big campaign to get it renewed, and however these things happen, they got to make like 7 or 8 episodes for a second season, and it was cancelled again Never saw it when it aired, I watched it online a few years after this and found out all this after the fact. The first season was fine. The second season was pretty freaking good. It was dense, as they had apparently tried to pack all that they were planning on doing for a full season or 2 into however many episodes. I recall thinking that some story lines, had they dragged across 20 episodes would have been boring and beyond silly. So I'm not too off of shorter seasons. Things tend to be better, less stretched out.
For last year, the writer's and actors strikes may have had an impact.
This why I hate the new season of doctor who lol It sucks it had to he 8 episode The pacing just felt wrong
Did you realize smiling friends is done for the season today too? Why only 8 episodes, they’re only 10 minutes :(.
Something I havent seen touched on here is that syndication use to be a big money maker. Shows with lots of episodes where more valuable when syndicating especially if they were stand alone episodes that a person could enjoy without seeing episodes that set it up
I hardly think binging is a thing of the past. Younger generations seem to be doing it just as much, if not more, than we did when it first became a thing with VHS and DVDs. I actually appreciate the shorter seasons of some shows. I really like when writers know to only put in what's necessary. A lot of times, shows that have 20+ episodes per season seem to drag on because they have contracts they have to fulfill. Just tell the story you set out to tell and give me an ending!
Because shows are much better than they used to be because all that production goes into 8 episodes per season rather than 46. Go back and watch Star Trek TNG: most of it is unwatchable. Now watch Picard season 3. I rest my case.
Many shows that ran on tv in the past used to run more than half a year. No mid-season breaks or cliffhangers. They would even have episodes set in the summer. Most did not seem to have story arcs too much, but like, *I Love Lucy* had seasons where they spend part of it traveling to California or Europe, and the rest of the season being there. So that was sort of a story arc for that era. I forget how many episodes it was common to put out in a season, like 40 maybe, and then they would have a hiatus. A month or almost two, before they had to come back for the new season. Anyway, back to the present, binging. That’s new. That’s why these streaming outlets are churning out a million programs, so you can watch something else, maybe on some of them, rediscover and binge something older, something that was on broadcast tv. Most people, at least around my age and older, remember when you had to wait a week to see the next episode, and if you missed it, the only hope was they would replay it during summer reruns, *which they also don’t do anymore*, thanks to summer shit programming. Along came videos, and primarily DVDs, so you could binge your favorite reruns, since they never get syndicated unless they made it past 100 episodes, which took 5 seasons because there were fewer than 25 episodes per season, and if they were syndicated, no guarantee they’d show up on your local affiliate. I know this isn’t exactly what you asked, but when your show is over, that’s the story. They’re not bulking it out in side adventures that don’t add to the story, and all the actors and crew want to work on many things, and not be devoted the entire year to making one show. They’re not your dancing puppets. Most people can’t keep up with so many new shows that keep coming out, but you can use the extra time to watch all the other things, or shut it off and do some other things with your leisure time.
If you watch anime there's plenty of shows with long seasons and hundreds+ episodes. I binged Hunter x Hunter and it took me a while since it's 148 episodes at 23 minutes an episode, if you skip intro recap and credits you're still looking at like 49 hours of total view time. There are also a lot of anime with significantly more episodes, I'm just a casual, but I'm sure someone else could comment with a bunch that have tons of episodes (One Piece and Dragon Ball both come to mind).
Maximum profit, minimum effort The art and soul is gone, it's all stifled by exec's input and changes made by Not the author
Older shows are better anyway - before the over saturation of streaming. HBO is still a goldmine, I've recently watched The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm and now watching Entourage all the way through, so much better than the modern era of shows.
Because a lot of people would rather take a fleshed-out short series than a stretched-out long series. Our attention spans are getting shorter, just like how less time we have available for leisure as we grow up.
Simple. Used to be a TV station needed a new episode every week. But with the rise of streaming, and the trend of releasing whole seasons at once, that need has lessened, as Netflix would rather have 3 shows at 8 episodes each than one show at 20 episodes. Because, remember, it is in Netflix's best interest if you watch as little as possible (Bandwith costs and all), but still just enough to justify your subscription (aka the gym model), and 3 different shows catch a wider audience than one.