Syndicated TV shows being edited to insert more ads

[Dreamstalker]

Specifically CSI on Spike. First they were time-shifting to stick in more ads, which I didn't really mind as they didn't stoop to messing with the show itself. Now they're inserting more breaks (losing material on the other side, so scenes make no sense) and even deleting scenes to make room for the ads.

One episode which especially irked me when I saw this was "Chaos Theory" (a favorite episode in the house). The primary case is a missing student, and there's a secondary case of her roommate's rape. The "B" case is cut completely (but a few lines referencing it are left in, which causes the whole thing to make less sense and it's clear the episode was messed with).

Other episodes simply have the forced breaks/minor omissions that only a diehard fan would catch (if nothing's cut the entire episode is sped up slightly), and this episode was not edited this badly the last time I saw it on broadcast. Which raises the question: why did they cut that case? If it was done because it 'wasn't relevant', most episodes have two unrelated cases. So why?

[TheHuckster]

I bet the network gets a two-fer with this one. An abridged version of the show is probably less cost, plus they get more advertising revenue. Win-win!

I know the same thing is done for shows like Seinfeld and The Simpsons, but strangely enough I haven't seen it done on Family Guy, which is one of the few shows that would probably benefit from having scenes shortened.

Just fyi, I'm pretty sure Netflix and/or Hulu Plus has full episodes of CSI and other shows. I switched back to basic cable and then subscribed, and for a few extra bucks a month I no longer have to worry about schedules or commercials. It's probably the best thing I ever did.

[HYHYBT]

This has been going on for as long as there have been syndicated reruns of network shows... but it's gotten worse. Particularly bad, if I'm understanding right, is taking something that's already been reduced (which is sometimes planned for when shows are made in the first place) to normal syndication lengths and cutting it further, or cutting out important points. It's bad enough on a comedy to get the end of a gag when the beginning is missing or vice versa, but on something like CSI those missing parts really mean something!

I like the way The Muppet Show handled this. It was syndicated new, of course, but the American version had a shorter running time than the British one. So they made it the shorter length, and then added an extra scene in the middle. Of course, were it being rerun now, it would still be cut down because running times are shorter than they were in the 70s. That shortening has to stop sometime, but it hasn't yet.

[Dreamstalker]

We have most of CSI on DVD already; now it's become a game: "spot what's been cut" (bonus points if you can find exactly where the tape has been spliced).

[wolfie]

This has shown up as a plot point on Remington Steele. Someone's alibi was that they were watching a re-run of Atomic Man (from the context, it appeared that this hero was a takeoff of events surrounding Clayton Moore/Lone Ranger), and someone saw that they were watching it, putting them at home at the time of the crime.

Turns out they were playing a tape of it (other than at the time of the broadcast), and had specifically set up the witness to see them watching the show in order to create the alibi - but one memorable scene the witness saw them watching was one that was cut by the syndicated broadcaster to make room for an extra commercial.

Many years ago, The Nashville Network (Canadian equivalent of CMT) was broadcasting re-runs of The Dukes of Hazzard that were 1/2 hour long. They definitely needed to cut out a LOT in order to fit a 1 hour show into a 1/2 hour slot, even if they didn't increase the percentage of commercials. Of course, that was fairly easy to do - couple of jumps by the General Lee, wreck a few police cars, Daisy in shorts, Boss Hogg gets something messy on his white suit, and you've got the plot of virtually any Dukes episode.

[bainsidhe]

I don't have cable, so I watch shows online, which I guess avoids that problem. I remember watching Back to the Future a few years back, where they cut the entire scene of Marty stalking and saving his dad. He arrives in the past and suddenly he wakes up at mom's house. Unless you'd seen the movie before, you'd have no idea that George was Marty's dad, let alone why Marty was stressing about history being messed up.

[Nekojin]

but strangely enough I haven't seen it done on Family Guy, which is one of the few shows that would probably benefit from having scenes shortened.

Ugh. Yes. Family Guy has a terrible "running joke" of doing a bit of physical comedy, and playing out what should be a 2-second "punch line" for 10 seconds. The one I always remember is Peter holding his knee, rocking back and forth and groaning. For way. Way. Too. Long.

[Gravekeeper]

Ugh. Yes. Family Guy has a terrible "running joke" of doing a bit of physical comedy, and playing out what should be a 2-second "punch line" for 10 seconds. The one I always remember is Peter holding his knee, rocking back and forth and groaning. For way. Way. Too. Long.

.......you know you're right, the show would be twice as funny if every episode was cut down to 15 minutes long. Not that its terrible funny to begin with. But yeah, does it every run a punchline into the ground.

As for CSI, dear lord, how much more advertising space do you need? I could see maybe a really old show that had a longer run time. But 1 hour shows are already only 45 minutes long including op and credits and have been since the 90s.

And they wonder why people are jumping ship to services like Netflix.

[Racket_Man]

Just a month or so ago Spike made all of the CSI shows like 90 minutes long by playing an ungodly amount of commercials in the commercial breaks. the breaks were at least 6 - 7 minutes long each.

the shortening of syndicated shows has been going on for at6 least 40 years that I know of.

I am old enough to have seen the original run of Star Trek on NBC in the late 1960's AND watched it immediately as it got syndicated on indie stations in the early 1970's.

After about 5 years of it being continoiusly on and getting to the point of memorizing each and every episode so that I knew scenes and dialogue and sets and plot points, etc by heart, I begans to notice the indie station beginning to cut out very small portions of scenes. as time went on I began to notice that whole sections of dialogue or scenes were being cut/edited out.

It was not until the mid 1990's when the SciFi channel (back when they actually had decent programming on) completely restored and enhanced ALL of the original ST episodes that all of the cut out stuff was restored and the espisodes were as I remembered them years before.

What the indie channel did was such a hack and slash job that the episodes were not even watchable and the story line wasbadly butchered.

[lordlundar]

As for CSI, dear lord, how much more advertising space do you need?

Spike's notorious for this. While channel flipping you have better odds of hitting their channel on a commercial break than the show itself. And a good portion of the time they don't have advertisers buying the slots so they will have a full 5 minute commercial segment (No, I am not embellishing) filled with 10-20 second show promos on their network repeating in the range of 5-6 times throughout. Some shows have zero advertisers in them causing 10 minutes of show then 5 minutes of Spike circle jerking.

You also get their activities of credit sharing (where as they show credits for the previous show while starting up the next) and it makes you wonder how they get away with it.

[Dreamstalker]

They also (I know they're not the only network that does this) have ads on the bottom of the screen during a show. Usually composed of mini-explosions or somesuch stupid crap that end up taking up most of the bottom half of the screen anyway.

...honestly, if it weren't for the fact that mom is hooked on a few channels that aren't in the basic package I'd be tempted to either cut the cable service down to the minimum, or get a Roku box (but that would require running network cable across the apartment which mom doesn't want me to do).

[violiav]

CSI hasn't been on Netflix for a few years (no current CBS shows have) and I doubt any will find their way to Hulu.

[HYHYBT]

I don't know about CSI, but when I was at my brother's a couple months ago I watched "How I Met Your Mother" on Netflix, and I'm pretty sure that's CBS.

[Andara Bledin]

Yup. How I Met Your Mother is CBS and it's still available on Watch Now.

^-.-^