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‘Longest-Running Scripted Show in Television History’ Is Renewed

Oct 7, 2013  •  Post A Comment

A TV show that has been on the air for a quarter of a century will continue for at least one more season. The New York Times’ Arts Beat reports that Fox renewed "The Simpsons" for a 26th season.

The renewal squashed speculation that the 25th season, which started last month, would be its last.

"Such speculation commonly surrounds long-running shows like ‘The Simpsons,’ which had its premiere on Fox in 1989 and raised the profile of the young network," the article notes.

Still, "The Simpsons" continues to pull viewers and make money for Fox and the studio behind the show, 20th Century Fox Television, the piece points out.

“This groundbreaking series is not only the longest-running scripted show in television history, it’s one of the greatest sitcoms of our time, and I’m looking forward to yet another landmark season,” Fox Broadcasting entertainment chief Kevin Reilly said.

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7 Comments

  1. The longest running scripted show is “Doctor Who”.

    • NO, it is not. One older show is General Hospital, which debuted on April 1, 1963, and is still going. Doctor Who didn’t start until November 2, 1963.

  2. What? The Simpsons is great, but it’s not even in the top 10 of TV’s longest running scripted shows. Longest running animated show? That, I could believe.

  3. Coronation Street first aired in 1960 and is still going strong. Doctor Who premiered, I believe, in 1963 (same day as JFK assassination). Regardless, both are scripted and both have been running far longer than The Simpsons.

  4. All four currently airing US daytime soaps are much older than The Simpsons: General Hospital (1963), Days of Our Lives (1965), Young and the Restless (1973), and Bold and the Beautiful (1987).

  5. Doctor Who only had 26 years as a continuous run, the the break between the end of the Classic Who to the 1996 Fox movie, to the 2005 relaunch.

    It is the longest running sci-fi TV show in history, however.

    Oh, DW premiered the day after the Kennedy assassination and because of the coverage, Verity Lambert had the premiere replayed so people could see it again.

    These are “scripted” TV shows. As for longest running TV shows in general, that title belongs to Meet the Press, which started in 1947.

  6. General Hospital is the USA ‘s longest running scripted show, but as usual people do not recognize daytime television, though it has created a strong fan base for each network , anchoring what station the television viewer tends to watch, and bringing in money for the networks for such long amounts of time for a fraction of the cost of so many primetime shows that have been long forgotten.

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