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FX's new Fargo TV series airs from 10 PM to 11:13 PM, Eastern. Why? I'm positive they could trim enough from each episode to make it fit a normal one-hour timeslot, and I doubt it'd be too hard to extend it to 1h30m if trimming wasn't an option. Why give the show such an irregular timeslot?

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  • The pilot episode was 70 mins, the regular episodes are 50 mins.
    – Oliver_C
    Apr 30, 2014 at 19:08
  • @Oliver_C: They may be 50 minutes once the commercials are removed, but they're still broadcast in a 1h13m-long timeslot.
    – jwodder
    Apr 30, 2014 at 19:09
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    Art doesn't always fall inside the box. Why are Stephen King novels so long? Why are movies of varying lengths? Simply because, it takes as long as it takes, to tell the story. All art is not haiku, though all haiku are art.
    – wbogacz
    Apr 30, 2014 at 20:41
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    @wbogacz: But novels and movies don't have set lengths. TV shows, on the other hand, are expected to fall into timeslots that are multiples of 30 minutes in length, and deviation from this is very unusual. Why would the FX executives let the show producers mess up the network's scheduling just for the sake of art? Why would the producers even consider a 73-minute timeslot in the first place?
    – jwodder
    Apr 30, 2014 at 21:00
  • @jwodder - I don't know that that's a rule. It is certainly an accepted practice. Also, a network's product is not the shows, but the commercial time sold in the gaps. Longer shows contain more opportunity for money-filling gaps. TV is an ad-driven enterprise that uses story wrapped around the ads, not the other way around. It's the story that keeps the audience coming back for the money-driving commercials.
    – wbogacz
    Apr 30, 2014 at 21:06

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If you look at their entire schedule, they list Fargo as running back to back to back.

So, from the 10pm to 11:13 Saturday night time slot you have an episode of Fargo, then from 11:15p Saturday until 1 am Sunday, you have another episode. (It is not clear if it is an encore presentation or not).

Then again at 1 am, you have another slot for Fargo, only this one is limited to an hour.

So my supposition is that they are extending the time slots to get more advertising time/revenue, and the two shows together take up a 3 hour block.

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That only comes out to blocks of 2 and a half hours, not 3. I read the network execs allow them a lttle more time to tell the story each episode, due to each season being like a mini-series, ending on the season's last episode.

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    Citation? Where did you read that, and what else did they say? (Your first sentence would be better suited as a comment on the answer it addresses.)
    – Meat Trademark
    May 27, 2016 at 7:16

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