User blog comment:Lemursrule/BLEACH 359 Review: The Runaways/@comment-1837917-20120208041658/@comment-3134619-20120208043932

It's pretty much about money, but it's not so much about making money as it is losing it.

See, the thirty-minute/hour intervals that most shows take up are called "slots," and slots that occur during hours when most people watch TV are considered "prime slots." These prime slots cost more money, so the studios try to fill them with popular shows that people want to watch, and the different producers of these shows literally (well, not literally literally, but literally insofar as with with money and rep) fight for the slots they feel would cater best to their viewers (for example, children's shows are best shown later in the day, when the kids are out of school, rather than in the middle of the day, when no kids will be around to watch it).

If a show manages to secure a time slot within one of these prime times and it caters well to their viewing audience, they will do anything to keep it, because if they, say, give the show a break, those slots might not be there when they're ready to come back again. Then, they'll have to pick a lesser time slot, and if none of the usual viewers can watch during this new slot, then the show loses ratings, and if the show loses too many viewers and the ratings go down too far, the show gets cancelled.

In the end, the quality of the content doesn't matter: viewers = money, so even if we find an arc to be ridiculous and we still watch, the studio still makes money.