How did the hour-long drama, half-hour animation and comedy format arise?

How did the hour-long drama, half-hour animation and comedy format arise? - Silhouette of Man on Rock Walking during Nightime

It makes sense for TV channels to broadcast with their schedules divided into half-hour chunks, so that (including ads where applicable) 30, 60 and 90-minute episodes are typical. The half-hour comedy format has been prevalent in UK and US TV since at least the 1950s (e.g. Hancock's Half Hour and I Love Lucy), and animations in Japan, the UK and the US have long also had a half-hour format.

I think the hour-long drama format is a more recent standard, since for example The Quatermass Experiment and Dragnet both used a half-hour format in the 1950s, but again it applies to both the UK and US. Though usually child-friendly, Doctor Who is clearly intended as a drama, and experimented with an episode-doubling format in 1985, only to then abandon it until 2005, when it stuck. Whether this is because a tolerance for longer dramas became locked in c. 1990 I don't know.

How and when did these conventions develop? How independent were nations' paths with this? In particular, how far did the US influence the UK and Japan?






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How do you structure a half-hour dramedy?

Structure of a Half-Hour Drama
  • Half-hours have one or two major plot movements. ...
  • Three acts and a teaser is the structure, but there's room to mix it up. ...
  • Scenes often run shorter because they no longer have to service multiple plotlines, with scene lengths running on average 1.77 pages.


  • Can TV drama be half an hour?

    The half-hour drama also reflects where the real creative energy is in TV today. Some of the best work is happening in half-hour hybrids \u2014 \u201cTransparent,\u201d \u201cBetter Things,\u201d \u201cAtlanta\u201d and \u201cBarry,\u201d to name a few \u2014 that are \u201ccomedies\u201d for awards purposes but half drama, or more, in substance.



    What Happens When You Don’t Skip the Ads (feat. Brendan Scannell)




    Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

    Images: Jeff Nissen, stein egil liland, willsantt, Pixabay