----------------------------Original message---------------------------- To my knowledge, and I'm certainly not a professional in the field (just a few internships here and there), if the show is picked up for a full season then the required number is 22 or 24. Big hits get renewels on multiple season basis. Reasoning being if it was a big hit one season, it's most likely to be a big hit for several more seasons. The network would want to secure that hit to be on their, and not on a competing network. Because, what could happen, is that the next season the studio that produced the show might want to renegotiate a price for its hit show, and take it up for bidding against other networks. So actually the trends that you see in ordering by the networks from the studios is either very long commitments on HIT SHOWs, or hardly any commitment on unknown shows or mediocrely performing shows. The usual number here is probably 6 to at maximum 12 shows. As far as Dateline NBC, since it's a network-produced show they have more flexibility with scheduling it. They are the producers. I Hope this was of some help to you GreETings Dominik Leconte [log in to unmask] Bowling Green State University On Fri, 17 Feb 1995, Matt McAllister wrote: > ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- > Hi everybody! > > Here's a question a colleague of mine asked, and I told him I'd pass it > along to Screen-Lers. > > My understanding is that when a new prime TV sitcom is picked up for a full > season the network typically orders 20 episodes for the year. How many > episodes does the network order for a mondo-hit show, like Roseanne or > Seinfeld? Is it the same number, a higher number or a lesser number? How > about for a news magazine show like Dateline NBC? > > Thanks! > > > Matt McAllister > Department of Communication Studies, Virginia Tech > Blacksburg, VA 24061-0311 e-mail: [log in to unmask] ph: 703-231-9830 >