Hiatus (television)

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In television scheduling, a hiatus refers to a break of at least several weeks in the normal schedule of a television program. It can occur during a season of a television program, or can be between television seasons (usually during the summer, starting in June and ending in August when shooting starts for the next season). In recent years, some television shows have been placed "on hiatus" by their networks for long periods of up to several years, effectively cancelling them while leaving viewers and producers with the possible hope of the shows' eventual return. Some television series also go on hiatus from June-January or from December-August.

Many times television stations will implement a hiatus for their programs for the sheer purpose of splitting up a season, just so it will run for longer until the next season is completed. An example of this is NBC's show Heroes, which is currently taking a 2 month hiatus that started in February, and is planned to return in April. Another reason why programs go on hiatus is so that networks can reserve some episodes for airing during sweeps, wherein networks compute their advertising fees based on their programs' ratings during that period. Programs "return from hiatus" in time for the sweeps period so as to generate high ratings, and as such usually include special content in programming such as guest stars, controversial and unexpected plots or topics, extended episodes and finales.