American TV

[a.kitman]

Why do you change the air date so often.
My favorite shows are changinge airdate all the time.
Firste family guy then battlestar galactica, rome and now lost.
How do you americans stand up to this atrocity.

[Cyclotron]

I solve it by not watching TV

[a.kitman]

[Cyclotron]

[flash9286]

i dont think lost has changed timeslots its still 9pm on wednesday

[a.kitman]

for some reason it has made a two weeks breake.
If it was onely lost I wouldn't have cared but all shows at one time or another have this mid seasone "breaks".

[flash9286]

alot of the fox shows went on break becuase of baseball

[Imran Siddiqui]

Firste family guy then battlestar galactica, rome and now lost.

Rome has always been on the same airdate.

for some reason it has made a two weeks breake.
If it was onely lost I wouldn't have cared but all shows at one time or another have this mid seasone "breaks".

That's not changing an airdate. That's just having a break, and showing repeats in those time slots instead.

[Datajack Franit]

TV

[Ming]

A lot of breaks are timed around Nielsen Ratings dark weeks... where full demographic data isn't collected. If you see a week with lots of specials, and mostly reruns, it's a good tip off

Programs shift times and dates usually because their ratings suck, and they are trying to find another slot for them hoping the ratings will improve. Granted, sometimes a show that did better than expected gets moved to a better time period so that they can increase the ratings... but when you see a program shifting times and days a lot... it's a good sign that it won't be on the air very much longer

[JohnT]

What Ming is telling you, a.kitman, is that TV shows are not aired for the benefit of the viewing audience, but for the benefit of the TV network and, by lesser extension, their advertisers. There are no more new episodes of Lost this month because ABC wants to have the audience hyped for the new November episodes - those episodes which, not at all coincidentally, coincide with one of the two periods of the year where Advertisers/Networks most closely monitor viewership... all for the purposes of setting the next 6-months ad rates (or 12 months, or whatever).

[Asher]

Get a PVR, I don't even pay attention to when shows are on really. They just appear in my recorded episodes list now and then.

[Thorn]

I don't watch TV.... except the News sometimes. And I pay for like 600 channels, what a waste...

[OzzyKP]

I don't watch TV either, but I'm smart enough not to pay for cable or satelite or anything.

[Sikander]

I do agree with the o.p. inasmuch as I think that the constant shifting does reduce overall viewership.