Is "Friends" slowly being phased out of local, OTA weekday syndication

[TMC]

I much emphasize "local" so nobody will reply saying that it's still on national outlets like TBS and Nick at Nite. In other words, instead of reruns being in prime-time on Fox/WB/UPN affiliates, it has more recently (since around 2012 or 2013) been dumped to late night or even graveyard slots.

[TV Guy]

It's not being deliberately phased out as much as it's playing out a normal syndication life cycle. When a hit show first plays in syndication, it generally gets great time periods (prime access - between 7:00 and 8:00 pm, and late evening - between 10:00 pm and midnight). As time goes on and audiences tire of the show, it moves to late afternoon periods, then early afternoon, then either morning or overnight hours. You'll start to see it as filler on weekends. Finally, local stations choose not to renew their contracts and it disappears from broadcast.

Then it gets a run on the prime cable channels - like TBS and TNT and FX. Then it might get a run on a secondary channel like Hallmark. Then it moves to the digital subnets.

Some shows are such evergreens that their broadcast syndication afterlife lasts a good long time. Seinfeld, I Love Lucy, MASH, The Brady Bunch, Three's Company, etc. But eventually, time catches up with them and they are replaced in broadcast syndication by more recent shows.

Seinfeld and Friends have had very healthy broadcast syndication runs, but they eventually will follow this path.

[tlc38tlc38]

Maybe one day it'll completely be phased out.

[icecream]

Friends hasn't aired on my locals in years.

[icecream]

Originally Posted by TV Guy

It's not being deliberately phased out as much as it's playing out a normal syndication life cycle. When a hit show first plays in syndication, it generally gets great time periods (prime access - between 7:00 and 8:00 pm, and late evening - between 10:00 pm and midnight). As time goes on and audiences tire of the show, it moves to late afternoon periods, then early afternoon, then either morning or overnight hours. You'll start to see it as filler on weekends. Finally, local stations choose not to renew their contracts and it disappears from broadcast.

Then it gets a run on the prime cable channels - like TBS and TNT and FX. Then it might get a run on a secondary channel like Hallmark. Then it moves to the digital subnets.

Some shows are such evergreens that their broadcast syndication afterlife lasts a good long time. Seinfeld, I Love Lucy, MASH, The Brady Bunch, Three's Company, etc. But eventually, time catches up with them and they are replaced in broadcast syndication by more recent shows.

Seinfeld and Friends have had very healthy broadcast syndication runs, but they eventually will follow this path.

Seinfeld is still going strong in my area. It airs in primetime in the 10PM hour on my CW affiliate. I don't see it going away anytime soon.

[icecream]

Originally Posted by Alan Brady's Hair

Does the new syndication all start on Labor Day? If so, Friends is unchanged in Washington, DC this year - one episode at 5:30 following an episode of Last Man Standing and preceding an hour of Two Broke Girls. Two episodes on Sunday, 6-7 PM.

I guess you're doing pretty well in syndication if the shows before and after you are newer by more than a decade. Edit: Seinfeld also hanging in with one episode at 10:30 pm and another at midnight (two episodes of 2 1/2 Men in between).

It is spread out over a few weeks. A lot of the changes will take place on September 11 and 18, and some might be as late as September 25.

[TV Guy]

Originally Posted by catsrule

Seinfeld is still going strong in my area. It airs in primetime in the 10PM hour on my CW affiliate. I don't see it going away anytime soon.

Yep - Seinfeld is the new MASH. MASH ran for years and years in local syndication before it finally faded out.

[BigManMike]

Friends ended in Local syndication in Memphis around 2012/2013. The only new show Memphis is getting this year is Mom. Memphis is one of the lousiest markets in the nation. We never had Mike and Molly, the Middle or 2 Broke Girls. And we aren't getting the Goldbergs or The Game like most other markets are. So all we have is Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men, Modern Family and Mom plus the Simpsons and Family Guy for animated shows which just returned to the Memphis market in 2016 after being absent a few years.

[BigManMike]

I can't even remember when Seinfeld ended in Memphis. It's been awhile. I remember MASH was on WHBQ 13 up until like 2009. Same for Cheers and Perry Mason on WREG 3.

[MrCleveland]

Hmm...

WBNX (Cleveland's CW afflilate) STILL plays Friends at 10 pm. Oddly enough, this station is owned by a Pentecostal Megachurch called Grace Cathedral which is operated by a 96-year-old minister Rev. Ernest Angely...too bad I didn't go to media school 20 years ago... I could've been a great audio editor for WBNX since they censored curse words...even "butt".

So would WBNX 20 years ago by the Weird Blank Network?

[Smartboy]

Originally Posted by MrCleveland

Hmm...

WBNX (Cleveland's CW afflilate) STILL plays Friends at 10 pm. Oddly enough, this station is owned by a Pentecostal Megachurch called Grace Cathedral which is operated by a 96-year-old minister Rev. Ernest Angely...too bad I didn't go to media school 20 years ago... I could've been a great audio editor for WBNX since they censored curse words...even "butt".

So would WBNX 20 years ago by the Weird Blank Network?

[Smartboy]

Originally Posted by MrCleveland

Hmm...

WBNX (Cleveland's CW afflilate) STILL plays Friends at 10 pm. Oddly enough, this station is owned by a Pentecostal Megachurch called Grace Cathedral which is operated by a 96-year-old minister Rev. Ernest Angely...too bad I didn't go to media school 20 years ago... I could've been a great audio editor for WBNX since they censored curse words...even "butt".

So would WBNX 20 years ago by the Weird Blank Network?

If they censored the word "butt" then they would have had to omit one of the folk songs that Phoebe performed at the coffee house. It went "Crazy underwear, creeping up my 'butt'. Crazy underwear, always in a rut". The episode that that song was on was called "The One with Ross' Thing".

[MrCleveland]

Originally Posted by Smartboy

If they censored the word "butt" then they would have had to omit one of the folk songs that Phoebe performed at the coffee house. It went "Crazy underwear, creeping up my 'butt'. Crazy underwear, always in a rut". The episode that that song was on was called "The One with Ross' Thing".

Well...when WBNX acquired The WB 20 years ago...butt was said more often, but the curse words were still blanked.

Now WBNX only censors the actual words of "Johnson" and "Vajayjay" (Those probably can be used, but their actual terms can't.

[Smartboy]

Originally Posted by MrCleveland

Well...when WBNX acquired The WB 20 years ago...butt was said more often, but the curse words were still blanked.

Now WBNX only censors the actual words of "Johnson" and "Vajayjay" (Those probably can be used, but their actual terms can't.

That is all very interesting.

[MrCleveland]

Originally Posted by Smartboy

That is all very interesting.

I didn't even get this on Wikipedia...one night I was watching something on WBNX before they became a WB/CW affiliate and I asked my mom...God rest her soul and it's almost a year since she left Earth..."why does this station blank-out words like 'butt'"? Then she said...the station is owned by Christians.

I know Pentecostals have a different doctrine than Lutheran's like abstaining drugs/alcohol/smoking and the laying of hands...but they do share the same God.