Mid Season Breaks?

[Guinness]

Just wondering if any of of our American cousins can shed any light on the reason for the irritation of Mid Season Breaks?

Done a little research and all I can find is that this has always happened in the US because many US TV programmes are shifted from the schedules to make way for Baseball games.

In the recent past Sky has held back on showing US series until it could screen the whole series back to back (e.g. Stargate), but, with the ease of downloading episodes from this interweb thing, Sky now pre-empts and shows episodes within a couple of days of the US screening.

So, my point. In these days of Sky+ series record, multibox and alternate channels for the main broadcasters (BBC 1,2,3,4..ITV1,2..Fx1,Fx2 etc..etc..), why do the giants of US TV not show sport or the series in question on on one of their numerous sister channels?

Don't you guys have ways of recording TV or multibox technology?

[steeljack]

its all about money , according to the networks (TV stations) prime time viewing figures dip seasonally , an example,the Christmas period television viewing figures usually dip, so the networks get less money from advertizers (fewer eyeballs on the ads) so they carry over popular programs and run repeats during December . This month is known in TV speak as "March madness " a big national basketball competition which lasts a couple of weeks ... viewing figures for this are very high on CBS which has the contract to show the games so the other stations hold over their 'good stuff' since they would have lower viewing figures and CBS pre-emts its regular programing (NCIS etc.) to show these games
The regular TV season usually runs from October thru April , TV viewing during the summer is a lot lower (folks have other things to do outside in the good weather) and thats when we get re-runs and try-outs of new programs which may or may not make the Fall(Autumn) schdule .
Hope this answers your question .

just a note , yep lots of folks have DVRs and stuff but the advertizers dont count them as eyeballs for the ads since most people fast-forward thru them .
re. the sports channels .. they usually carry games nationally . If I want to watch a local game (Oakland or San Francisco, football or baseball) I would watch it on a local station , same as the folks in New York would watch their teams on a New York Station

as said before its all about money