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Though I'm slightly outside of this age range, I might watch more network series television series if they kept shows in one timeslot and ran more than 4 - 6 new episodes in a row before switching to repeats and specials. I'll watch a show like Enterprise or Smallville and we'll get a run of new episodes and then it seems to meander through some repeats in now particular episodes if they show it at all. At some point, they eventually decide to show a few more. After a while, I stop turning on the show or leaving time for it because its just repeats and miss when the new shows start up. They should shoot the idiot who decided to only show new episodes during sweeps periods. Life is too short for me to keep track of when new episodes are being shown or not shown so I just give up. Similarly, I watch shows like Futurama on the Cartoon Network even though I almost never caught it on Fox because I could never tell when it was going to be on.

Show 24-26 episodes (allow for a special or two, if necessary). Repeat them in sequence so that new viewers can start watching. Start next season in same time slot one year after the previous sesason. Repeat the next season in sequence. Rinse and repeat. How hard can that be?

Another great idea is to put too many shows in one genre or two successful shows up against each other so that none of them can survive. Yeah, all the science fiction geeks are home on Friday so let's put a science fiction show on every channel to grab that audience. Problem? Divide that audience by 3 or more and you don't have enough of an audience to keep a show alive.

Final anecdotal point. A friend who is also slightly above the 18-34 age demographic and his wife were a real Neilson family. He spends many of his evenings playing Counter Strike instead of watching television. The networks must hate him.

I'm right in the middle of the target demographic: 28 yr-old male. I'm married, with a 2 year-old -- between work, dinner, church activities, playing with my daughter, working on our finances, working around the house, other husband-wife activities, and trying to get more than 5 hours of sleep, I simply don't have the time to watch much TV.

Two exceptions:
1) Jeopardy (I've convinced my 2 year-old that Jeopardy is fun to watch; she knows Alex Trebek's name, and gets excited when she hears the show theme!)
2) Smallville (Wed. night, 8 PM, on the WB). My wife and I got hooked 2 years ago during Season 1 -- ironically, the only episode I've ever missed is the very first one!