Ya, I remember summer replacement series being on TV. What is this guy talking about?
The summer replacements everyone remembers being on TV were not “real” TV shows. They just stuck a singer in a studio in front of a live audience and cranked out some bad sketches. Shows like that cost two bucks to produce, and they weren’t intended to continue — come September, they would get out of the way for the “real” schedule.
Hour dramas, movies, and mini-series on expensive film stock were never, ever produced for summer in the first fifty years of broadcast TV. That’s what’s different now. Networks are programming “real” shows for June, July and August — big expensive shows that could easily air in the fall and find an audience, like Stephen King’s “Under the Dome.”
The broadcast nets have to operate year-round if they’re going to stay in business.