Shortest TV programme (2023)

FAQs

What is the shortest running TV show? ›

Turn-On is an American sketch comedy series that aired on ABC in February 1969. Only one episode was shown, leaving one episode unaired, and the show is considered one of the most infamous flops in TV history.

Gunsmoke. Spanning 20 years on the air and 636 episodes, Gunsmoke is one of the longest-running TV shows in history.

Running time

In the United States, dramas produced for hour-long time slots typically are 37 to 42 minutes in length (excluding advertisements), while sitcoms produced for 30-minute time slots typically are 18 to 21 minutes long.

Yes, to allow time for commercials. When shows go into syndication they are often edited by another minute or so to allow 2–3 additional commercials.

Cheyenne is an American Western television series of 108 black-and-white episodes broadcast on ABC from 1955 to 1962. The show was the first hour-long Western, and was the first hour-long dramatic series of any kind, with continuing characters, to last more than one season.

Broadcast history

Mary Kay and Johnny was the first program to show a couple sharing a bed, and the first series to show a woman's pregnancy on television: Mary Kay became pregnant in 1948 and after unsuccessfully trying to hide her pregnancy, the producers wrote it into the show.

Seasons of television have been getting shorter and shorter in recent years.

The lives of an ex-con hot dog vendor, a group of nuns, an aspiring actress and other residents of Warsaw converge for 11 fateful minutes. Watch all you want.

What is the best mini series to binge watch? ›

W3XK was the first commercially licensed television station in the US, owned by inventor Charles Francis Jenkins. The company broadcast just outside Washington, D.C., and continued to air “radio movies” to the general public five nights a week until 1932.

“Gunsmoke” finally ended its run in 1975, long after the heyday of the Western, after a whopping 635 episodes. It's the longest-running live-action show to date.

From established writers and showrunners, a half-hour sitcom script can be as long as 44 pages. Keep in mind that sitcoms are more often than not dialogue-heavy, which would account for the increased page counts. For novice writers, it's best to shoot for 22-25 pages to get you under that 30-minute gauge.

Nowadays, 30-minute shows tend towards a three-act structure, but the number of acts is all about what works best for telling your story. There's a lot of reinvention within 30-minute shows, so there's room to play around and try new things.

The reason for these overruns is very old-school, with schedulers believing if a popular show runs into another show's time period, it may keep viewers from turning between episodes to the competition. This usually ends up just annoying viewers for the reasons you state in your question.

A one-hour drama is generally five acts of a show. It's a one-hour drama separated into five parts, probably about 55 pages, although they can be longer.

3: "Gunsmoke" (1955-1975)

Since that time, many of the most watched shows in the US have been sitcoms. American sitcoms are generally written to run a total of 22 minutes in length, leaving eight minutes for advertisements in a 30 minute timeslot.

What was the first sitcom on TV? ›

The first US sitcom was Mary Kay and Johnny (DuMont 1947), domestic tales of New York newlyweds.

Lasting 14 seasons and 431 episodes, Bonanza is NBC's longest-running western and ranks overall as the second-longest-running western series on U.S. network television (behind CBS's Gunsmoke), and within the top 10 longest-running, live-action American series.

In the experimental days of television, the very first full-length program broadcast in the US was a drama in one act called The Queen's Messenger by J. Harley Manners. The WGY radio station in Schenectady, New York first aired the drama on September 11, 1928.

“Decoy: Police Woman” might be an all-but-forgotten relic from the early days of television, but it was groundbreaking as the first show to feature a female police officer and a female protagonist.

Among current late-night talk show hosts, Americans reported the highest net favorability rating of “The Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon, at 39. Roughly 3 in 5 U.S. adults (61%) said they have watched the legacy NBC show with Fallon at the helm.

Other hit shows featuring scenes with Murphy beds are Frasier, Cheers, and Love American Style. The latter had an episode titled, “Love and Murphy's Bed,” in which an electric Murphy bed provides a cozy hiding place for many people.

Rob: TV shows are in reruns now for two primary reasons. First, there are often reruns in March and early April. Second, there's the current global pandemic that's keeping everyone at home, including the actors, writers, camera operators and all crew members who make TV shows.

Since 2010, viewing on traditional TV dropped by over a quarter among 16-24 year olds and children, and by 19% for those between 25-34 year olds. Worryingly for traditional broadcasters, viewers between 35 and 44 year olds also reduced their time spent watching traditional TV by a substantial 17% in the last 5 years.

Failure is something that everyone in television gets used to — they don't have a choice. According to Noah Hawley, showrunner of the canceled MY GENERATION, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter¹, approximately 92% of all shows fail.

Which is the No 1 best series in the world? ›

From fascinating documentaries like "Flint Town" and stories based on true crimes like "Inventing Anna" to entertaining fictional shows like "Midnight Mass," here are the best miniseries currently available on Netflix for your next short-term TV obsession!

Though the term “limited series” has eclipsed “miniseries”—primarily to allow for additional seasons—those of us who grew up with the latter term know that it generally means a short, excellently crafted event watch. No matter what you want to call them, though, the 13 series below certainly fit that bill.

Just like smartphones and computers, smart TVs eventually become obsolete because they can't run the apps you like. That's what's happening to some older models of Samsung and Vizio TVs, which won't support the Netflix app starting on December 2, 2019.

Local broadcasters transmit Free TV channels over-the-air in 210 major cities across the United States, these broadcasts are sent over the airwaves for free and are intended for customers who live within a designated market area otherwise known as a "DMA".

Will television disappear in the years to come? ›

Some believe this reduces stress and prevents depression. Nevertheless, TV isn't likely to disappear overnight. Television's convenience and familiarity will almost certainly keep it in many homes and businesses for years to come.

The invention of the television created an industry that forever changed the world. By 1953, RCA devised the first complete electronic color TV system.

Television's first prime time network color series was The Marriage, a situation comedy broadcast live by NBC in the summer of 1954. On June 27, 1951, CBS began airing the first regularly-scheduled color television series, "The World Is Yours!" with Ivan T.

Most watched broadcasts of all time

Super Bowl XLIX, with 114.4 million viewers, is number one.

The Simpsons (1989 - )

As the longest-running sitcom in television history, The Simpsons continues to leave a lasting impact on everyone who watches it. This animated comedy focuses on the Simpsons family and how their varying personalities tend to get them in trouble.

Internationally, the title of longest-running sitcom goes to Last of the Summer Wine, a BBC comedy than ran for 37 years and 31 series and ended in 2010, according to Guinness World Records. The record for longest-running animated sitcom is held by The Simpsons, which is in its 33rd season.

For writers looking to capitalize on that, just how much can a Netflix screenwriter make when they sell a script to the streaming giant? As a general guideline, the streaming giant Netflix pays between $100 million to $250 million for the rights to a typical box-office movie that they wish to put on their platform.

Do sitcoms have to be 3 acts? ›

As a general rule, 4-5 acts plus a teaser is standard for an hour-long series, while 3 acts suffices in a half-hour. Most comedies also include a tag at the end of each episode.

A typical hour-long drama or comedy has around 42 pages (including scene headings and slug lines). So, if you have a 100-page feature script, you should expect it to translate into about 22 minutes of broadcast time (that's not accounting for commercial breaks).

In screenwriting, one page of your script is usually equivalent to one minute of screentime. So if you're looking to make an average, 20-minute long short film, you'll want your short film script to be about 20 pages long.

Tell me more about the very earliest television recording to survive? The earliest surviving recordings are Baird television 30-line transmissions on gramophone records. One of the earliest sequences of images, is of a Miss Pounsford, recorded by Baird in March 1928.

Watching anywhere between two and six episodes of a TV series in one sitting is a behavior called binge watching, and it can have a negative impact on your health.

Scriptwriters on some of America's biggest TV shows have upped the word count significantly because they believe the faster characters speak, the more intelligent viewers perceive them to be.

From established writers and showrunners, a half-hour sitcom script can be as long as 44 pages. Keep in mind that sitcoms are more often than not dialogue-heavy, which would account for the increased page counts. For novice writers, it's best to shoot for 22-25 pages to get you under that 30-minute gauge.

There's no rule, but there is an average. Most acts include three to five scenes, and most TV shows have four acts, so that's anywhere between 12 and 20 scenes in a single episode.

A one-hour drama is generally five acts of a show. It's a one-hour drama separated into five parts, probably about 55 pages, although they can be longer.

How many scenes in a 1 hour TV show? ›

Typically, a one-hour drama consists of a teaser and 4 acts. There are some, like Enterprise, that have a teaser and 5 acts and still others that are only 4 acts, like Alias.

Television's first drama,The Queen's Messenger, is broadcast from Schenectady, New York station WGY on September 11, 1928. Russian-born, American scientist Vladimir Zworykin demonstrates the first practical electronic system for both the transmission and reception of images in 1929.

In the experimental days of television, the very first full-length program broadcast in the US was a drama in one act called The Queen's Messenger by J. Harley Manners. The WGY radio station in Schenectady, New York first aired the drama on September 11, 1928.

From established writers and showrunners, a half-hour sitcom script can be as long as 44 pages. Keep in mind that sitcoms are more often than not dialogue-heavy, which would account for the increased page counts. For novice writers, it's best to shoot for 22-25 pages to get you under that 30-minute gauge.

“Gunsmoke” finally ended its run in 1975, long after the heyday of the Western, after a whopping 635 episodes. It's the longest-running live-action show to date.