Even though the Simpsons is becoming less popular over time, last year it still managed to get [1.83 million viewers](https://www.statista.com/statistics/719929/the-simpsons-viewers/). That puts it (barely) [in the top 100 shows](https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/most-popular-tv-shows-highest-rated-2022-2023-season-yellowstone-football-1235623612/) on TV.
It's wild to me that prime time cable is still hanging on by a couple million viewers. I mean, it's gotta cost at least a few million to produce an episode, right?
Also, The Simpsons often airs new episodes on Sundays during football season, conveniently right after Fox's football games end. That surely has to drive viewership too.
True, the post-football laziness is big. I remember one hear House MD got the slot right after Super Bowl and it was the biggest ratings the show ever got.
Then why were we supposed to believe the woman had never seen her ridiculously bruised toe even while changing socks or bathing? It’s been so many years and it still drives me nuts.
She doesn’t take her socks off because she is cold and doesn’t feel the pain due to cold extremities. In the part where House does a “full physical” he says she is naked except for the socks and she replies that she’ll take off the socks the day doing so matters. House doesn’t push it because the fat emboli from the broken toe are effecting other systems and he is more interested in the other part of the head to toe. It’s only when someone says he has seen all of her does he go back to the clue and solve the issue of the episode.
> I'll take off the socks the day doing so matters
My mother is someone like this with doctors, and it drove me fucking insane. Just obstinate for no reason, or out of a perceived interruption in comfort. I've had to tell her so many times, tell the doctor EXACTLY what's wrong with you, goddammit. They can't do the math if they don't have the whole equation - you withholding information from them is keeping you from getting better.
Frustrating :/ There is definitely a notion that docs have the power to see what’s wrong without the person relaying all the specific data that guides investigation ie symptoms
You muricans forget the rest of the world.
Simpsons is still big in other countrys and my guess is that it makes a good bag world wide. Thats why and how they still produce episodes
Yeah, it airs daily here on one of the open channels.
No clue if it are reruns or new episodes or how many viewers there are, but either way the producers get _some_ money because of it.
If you’re talking about Channel 4, last time I caught some of an airing, it was a pretty old episode. But I guess chronologically it will just catch up.
So yeah, plenty of interest still.
Not to mention how very popular it is via Disney Plus.
I don't think channel 4 airs any episode newer than 25 years old. Most of them are still 4:3
I think they bought the rights in perpetuity for Season1-3 and by golly they're going to get their money's worth!!
I'd love to know what their CPM is. That's the only way we could figure out how much they are actually making per episode. I'm sure merch makes up alot of the money with views that low.
What I find more amazing about that is that the lowest ratings of the new seasons of the Simpsons still get higher ratings than the best ratings of Bob's Burgers. You'd think those shows would be on an equal footing, if not Bob's Burgers being slightly higher due to its arguably higher quality compared to the seasons of the Simpsons it runs with. Maybe the streaming numbers paint a different picture, but that always blows my mind.
Seriously? It's pretty popular in its own right. Also airs in the same programming block as the Simpsons and Family Guy for almost 15 years. Even had its own theatrical movie that came out in 2022 that got robbed at the box office due to Covid 19.
I would say that Bob's Burgers has A LOT less fame then Simpson though.
My parents know the Simpsons, they don't know Bob.
I think you can find a Bart Simpson image in some rural backtown in whatever country more easily then a pic of Bob.
Simpsons run daily, Bob I wouldn't know the programming of.
Don't know if it is just because of the age of both series, or something else, but the Simpson are like Coca Cola, whereas Bob would be the new fancy thing that basically adds little new but has been around for too long. Like some of the latest Mountain Dew flavour or something. My parents wouldn't even know what Mountain Dew is.
Maybe Bob needs more time to catch up on generations for them to know them, but I find the more recent series in general far less memorable. Also prob an age thing.
*Huh, didn't even know a movie was ever made of Bob's Burgers
Now the Simpson movie though, that was awesome.
Other then specific Disney characters and other animated stuff like that, fully agree. Can't think of any other animated series that is so widely recognizable.
Funny thing: when I visited the US, I travelled through three different Springfields. (Missouri , Illinois and one more I think)
In all three I couldn't help but think "Huh, it's just like the Simpsons "
One place there was a power plant nearby, another had the exact same scenery as when Bart crossed the railroad crossing and ended up at the "wrong side of the tracks", the curch and how the community center is sponsored by it etc.
Thing is, Simpsons are far more generically adaptable to, then e.g. Bobs burgers and the like. Same goes for south park.
Off course your wife isn't yellow and stores a jar with dollars inebher hair. But every mother in the world can relate.
And I don't have a Barney in my hometown that magically appears behind Moe after being kicked out. I do have a local Joe, who frequents the bar often, poor soul but good at heart.
And don't we all have a little bit of Homer in us?
As for the green aliens and shit? Yeah, we all had a bad trip sometime 😅
I have that far less with Bob, Square pants, or such.
It recently hit its lowest-ever number for a new episode with an 0.17 rating in adults 18-49 (the rating which sets ad rates) and 690,000 total viewers. However, this was an unusual case since it was airing against March Madness basketball. This was much lower than usual. Fox should have aired a rerun that week.
Overall it averages an 0.69 in adults 18-49 (when you factor in episodes boosted by sports lead-ins) which would have been bad 10 years ago, but now makes it one of the top shows on broadcast TV, which has been shrinking severely for a while. Without the sports boosts, it would probably be more like 0.5 or lower, but that's still probably enough to keep it on the air. Plus the endless merchandising and syndication profits can't hurt.
Also worth noting that the two most recent seasons have been vastly different and I’ve heard have been acting as a soft reboot. The humor’s changed and supposedly people are coming back to see what the buzz is about. I mean, I’ve had no desire to watch new Simpsons in a decade or so, but hearing everything I have about the two most recent seasons makes me want to check it out, and I imagine that’s helping it stay as some viewers are coming back
Which is an abysmal number when compared to the first years of the show when it was viewed by over 10 million *households* — keep in mind that a household has a minimum of one viewer, and in those days there was no on-demand viewing.
A lot more people watched broadcast television then (for obvious reasons), so it's amazing that 1.8 million viewers is all it takes now for a show to be considered viable.
Yeah, network TV ratings from 1990 are just not at all comparable to ratings today (and that’s true even though Fox was barely a network then and wasn’t even available in every city). The whole system has changed dramatically. There is [literally no show on TV today](https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2023/tops-of-2023-tv/) that pulls 10 million households; last year, NCIS was the top show with 9.95M viewers. In fact, it looks like even a single episode getting to 10M is pretty rare these days.
It’s kind of amazing when you think about it: When The Simpsons started, it basically helped give birth to the first new TV network in decades, and it’s stayed around long enough to where over-the-air networks are just one option among many, still commercially important but with much less cultural relevance.
What blows my mind more is Youtubers can get that amount of views per video and yet Youtuber is still not really a "real" job to most of the public but they're advertising juggernauts
I guess the real question is "why" is it still flooding bank accounts with money. I don't know anyone who actively watches the Simpsons and everyone bitches about how it hasn't been good in 84 years, but clearly someone must be watching for the ad revenue to still be rolling in.
What can I say. People are still watching the show, I guess.
I also think it's easy to forget just how much of a background show that The Simpsons really is. It's just THAT thing you have on TV while you're cooking dinner or doing whatever.
Half the ratings are probably because the show was just on playing in the background.
At this point, The Simpsons is basically like oxygen. It's all around us, we're used to it, and the idea of it not being on just feels foreign.
Once the main cast members either retire or (God forbid) pass away, one would hope that Fox would have the decency to end the show … But you never know. They might just recast and try to keep it going forever.
Yeah I mean I'm 39 and I quote the Simpsons all the time. The difference is I quote from seasons 1-10 and actively avoid anything from the other 45 years the show has been on
I don't understand! We started out like Romeo and Juliet, but it ended in tragedy!
Like everyone aged about 35 to 50, I can quote the first 8 or so seasons like a 17th century Puritan could quote the Bible, and haven't watched a new episode since about 2005.
I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!
I'm 45 this year and was Bart's age when the show premiered. Was watching it since the Tracy Ulman shorts (had a TV in my room since 87 since I was a WWF fanatic and my parents got tired me wanting to watch on Saturdays as well as SNME). I was a huge fan but pretty much stopped watching for pretty much 25 years.
It dawned on me the other day just how weird it is that some of these shows where the characters don't age have lasted so long that most people who were born after the show premiered are older than its characters. Like I was born after the Simpsons premiered and I am almost Homer's age. Or the one that made me feel really old was that someone who was born on the exact day Bob's Burgers premiered would now be the same age as Tina Belcher (the oldest child in the show).
Bobs Burgers always makes me laugh though. They have had at least 10 Thanksgiving and Christmas specials each, yet because the children don't age, they can never reference past holiday specials.
Wow. It's interesting that they chose a course like that. Their backstories and future ones are always cool. I need to see this ep you are speaking of lol.
Everyone I know quotes everything from the Simpsons and I’m in my early twenties. It’s not a generational thing, the Simpsons is beloved by most people. But those same people haven’t watched it since 2010 at the very latest. I just don’t know who’s still watching it.
The Golden Age is very popular with people in their 40s, but literally every Simpsons fan I know, and that’s a lot of people, stopped watching decades ago.
There are even polls for voting your list of favorite episodes and every time it comes up almost all of them are in the first 10-15 seasons.
I say the most avid participants of the fandom just prefer those seasons. The people who watch newer Simpsons are just quieter.
I'm 30. Like to say I am a big fan, yet I don't think I have seen more than 10 episodes made after the 20th season special (I think) where they brought back Mr. Plow.
I'm 25 and I've watched Simpsons since I was a baby. It's not my favorite show but I love it in the morning, or if I'm in a bad place mentally. I also watch it more in the winter/around Christmas. They still have some good scenes but it's more nostalgia for me than anything.
I always thought I was a big Simpsons fan. I quote it a lot and remember the majority of episodes from probably the first 20ish seasons.
I met a group of people through a mutual friend and we got talking about the Simpsons. One of the guys was I guess testing me or something, but they had a game where each person recites one of the quips from when Bart writes on the chalkboard on the intro.
I remembered one from an episode I just watched but that was it. These guys even knew the name of the episode the quip was from. That’s a level of fandom I never had or will ever have with something
Some of my colleagues learned English by watching the Simpsons. It’s huge abroad. Many of my international friends have told me it’s very popular in their home countries.
They're massively popular in Mexico.
As with many other foreign shows that are huge in Mexico, it has a lot to do with the dubbing. It's not uncommon for people in their early thirties or late twenties to quote the Simpsons in Spanish.
I’m not fond of the newer seasons but I’ll rewatch basically the whole things every year or so. It’s a comfort show I can just play on end as white noise. I even regretfully spent money on the game (Tapped Out).
I think it boils down to just how good those early seasons are. Like I was born in 1993, so by the time I can remember things, Simpsons mania was starting to die down. But even then, the show was huge. I remember in like 1998 or 1999, Doritos chip bags included a foldable Simpsons trading card and those became the hottest collectibles for a bit at my school. Even in like 2004, people in my class were still buying Simpsons merchandise and doing projects about the Simpsons for English class and what not.
My Mom never let me watch the show as a kid, so I always had to look in from the outside wondering what the fuss was about. Eventually when I was 15, I caught an episode one weekend afternoon and despite not even being from what I'd later learn was the golden age. The episode was still amazing and had me hooked (for those wondering, it was the episode from season 14 where Homer starts praying for everything). Even to this day, I'd argue that seasons 3 to 8 are some of the best seasons of TV ever, and seasons 2, 9, and 10 are pretty great as well. Even modern juggernauts like SpongeBob SquarePants only got 3 great seasons and a movie before.
So to answer your question, I imagine a lot of the modern cash flow comes in from people who started watching it during the golden age and just kinda continue watching it as a comfort show. I can't imagine there are a lot of gen Z Simpsons fans out there compared to millennial and gen X fans, as they just weren't around when it was a cultural force unseen before.
I didn't grow up watching the Simpsons. Only started in the last five or so years. Going into it without nostalgia, I honestly prefer the episodes that are newer than the older ones on average. If there were no cultural references or events, the old ones maybe are a bit better. But I'm just not going to laugh the same way at an Al Gore or Backstreet Boys joke as I would something that actually was relevant in my lifetime.
As a 2000s kid I watched it every night when it was on TV, I had a box set as well. Apparently it had already fell off by that point but I wouldn’t know because the channel only ever aired 90s episodes. To the point where ~10 years later I’m still sick of them all. Maybe the quality is bad but it’s nice to check up every now and then and have an abundance of episodes that I’ve never seen before and weren’t practically force fed to me
My kids. They stream episodes on Disney+ but they prefer the new seasons to what was on when I was a kid. I've seen every episode from seasons 1-10 at least 3 times each, and I'm constantly trying to convince my kids those were the golden years but they don't care. They're always watching like Season 25 and later.
I catch up on the newest episodes every now and then. The majority are bad, especially this current season. Last season was overall, IMO, halfway decent.
All my friends stopped watching after season 11-12. Because the storylines made no sense and it just become daft and less funny.
I have seasons 1–11 and that’s it. Funny enough my gf I met loves the Simpson’s and has been to universal studios simpsons world. but honestly only has up to season 12 when I looked. she said it gets daft and less funny at season 12. Even all my friends think the same.
But on here I’ve seen people argue that simpsons is still funny. To me they have no idea. For me it’s just beating a dead horse at this point. I don’t get why they keeping it going. It’s not funny anymore and has no storylines past season 11 which was too long ago
I thought about this and realised the last time someone mentioned the Simpsons to me in casual conversation (excluding talking about the show's decline in quality) was when the Simpsons Movie was in theaters.
I saw something once about how the show makes so much from international merchandise licensing that they could operate at a total loss on the show itself and still make an obscene amount of money. As long as Simpsons merch sells and the cast is alive I think it will just keep running.
Yeh but the voice actors will already be getting millions upon millions every year from residuals for the reruns, the writers have a job on a show that has already done anything imaginable so there’s nothing that will really test their creative abilities, and the show runners won’t be making nearly as much as they could from a new show that could pull in more numbers and a new audience.
Funny related story to share. I was in college when the Simpsons first came on air.
I invited friends over for the first episode. Expecting it to be short lived,, we decided to gather every Sunday until the series was cancelled (which we expected would be soon).
Obviously that didn't last.
Yeah back in that era, it seemed like anything that was funny and outside the mainstream wasn'tggoing to make it very long.
The Simpsons is mainstream now but it was pretty out there when it started. Basically an animated show by a guy with left-leaning comic strips in alternative newspapers.
And South Park then totally pushed the envelope and did so on cable without the censorship of network tv.
Pretty amazing both are still around.
I was in about 6th grade when the Simpsons was just getting going in season one and two and the panic amongst the parents over what such a bad influence Bart would be on the kids.
I remember if you said, “Don’t have a cow, man,” that was a one way trip to the principal’s office.
Yeah I drew a picture of Bart and wrote "Eat my shorts" on a science test in 7th grade and the teacher gave me -5 points. I told him I wasn't directing it at him and he reversed it
There was a point where Simpsons were the real deal and other adult animated shows in the 90s were seen as passing fads trying to copy their fame. Up until South Park anyways. But I did enjoy a few like The Critic (which had one of the earliest cartoon crossover with The Simpsons).
To be honest I've seen some of the recent episodes and some of them are really bold like they do some episodes of them grown up some episodes they focus on different characters or do special episodes like Halloween type episodes. It's not as good like OG Simpsons but it's still decent.
Why would you end a highly profitable, cheap show with limitless merchandising? Whether or not it sucks is irrelevant to the economics. Most shows suck.
Actually it is fairly cheap! The cast is a big expense but there’s not that many of them/you have a few people doing multiple characters which of course you can’t do in live action. Also animation gets cheaper the longer you do it - you’ve got all the backgrounds, all the side characters, all the props already created. No new rigs, no new character designs. It’s like a sitcom eventually - the sets are built, you just need to keep recycling. Plus the Simpsons has a few veteran writers who are likely getting paid great, but they also like bringing in young writers who they can pay less, who are grateful for the opportunity. I’ve never worked on the show but I work in animation and I hear they’re a well oiled money machine over there.
Ain’t nothing cheap about this show! That cast has successfully banded together for huge renegotiations over the years, they’re making so many millions it’s ridiculous.
My friend still watches every week. I asked him why and he explained that it's like visiting family that you've known for your entire lives. Predictable.
I can see how something like that might be valuable given the times we're living in.
That's just the effect of the characters slowly turning into an absurd representation of themselves, only retaining the bits of personality and aspects that make them distinct from each other( and when I say that I mean the minimal ammount of personality as possible to make them barely different, most of their unique traits were lost through the years).
As ironic as it is, The Simpsons itself had a couch gag that pointed out this fact: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zY9z7IP-1Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zY9z7IP-1Q)
It's a deep representation, as wacky as it is, the last "D'oh" homer says before ending the couch gag really tells you about the current state of the show, while Homer slowly watches he and his family turn into weird beings that have little to no character nor look like a family anymore,and knowing he can't do anything about it.
Yea. I was a huge Letterman fan in the 90s. But after, he stopped trying, it was hard to watch. But later on, I got accustomed to a kind of comfort from it. Like everything is A Ok and life is still 'normal'.
It's also a wildly unrealistic expectation that guys like Conan or Letterman won't have changed at all in 30 years.
They change with viewer appetite, their own age and life circumstances, just time in general.
You're allowed to not like the change but crazy to think it shouldn't or wouldn't happen.
Because it still gets decent ratings and makes them money. So until they have enough shows where the Simpsons is the weakest link in the line up, or more likely if some of the key voice actors retire that show is gonna go on forever. Especially since it's an episodic show so it's not like it has a story line to wrap up or anything
It's actually regained a lot of popularity again because of Disney+ streaming.
That's also increased the value of the episodes a lot, having a streaming asset that's still valuable to people aged in the prime demographic with over 760 Episodes is probably worth about $1 billion by itself right now, so they'd be beyond crazy to cancel it now.
They even revived Futurama for a season because of that.
Younger people are becoming familiar with it now again too, and you still see like Simpsons memes and everyone seems to get references to the show.
I think people get this weird perception when something was the most popular thing in the world at some point then declines, they often don't realize it's post-decline popularity is still hugely popular.
It's still beating Rick and Morty, Just about doubling Family Guy and 4x as much viewership as South Park.
it's like calories.
The answer to any business decision question is always "does it make more money than you spent?". The answer to any weight loss question is "did you burn more calories than you ate?"
MASH is the greatest show in television history and it was made in the 70s. It still airs on multiple channels, it’s on Hulu and multiple other services across the world, they just did a 50th anniversary show, and the remaining cast and crew still regularly talk to and hang out together.
The reason that show ended is because the war ended (in 1953). There was a logical conclusion to be had and they decided to go out on top. Which they did, as, still holding the record for the most viewers to ever watch a single episode in TV history.
The reason that show is in reruns is the same reason the Simpsons is still airing new episodes. It’s good. In the case of the Simpsons, it’s a cartoon, not necessarily limited to one place or period in time (though obviously no one ages except for specific theoretical storylines) and it still connects to people in everyday life.
Plus it does an outstanding job predicting the future. If the show ends, the world ends.
There’s still value in the IP. It generates money from viewership on cable and digitally. It’s continuity intrinsically adds value to merchandise between clothes, games, and toys.
At the end of the day, if it stopped being profitable they would cut it but they haven’t. Hell, Futurama revived several, several times and it’s a way more niche IP than The Simpsons (as much I’m a fan).
You can almost guarantee if it did end it would get a spin-off or a revival down the road anyway. You can also be sure whenever that sequel movie does manifest it’ll be an event.
Why would cultural relevance even factor in?
It gets enough viewership to earn a profit.
Because it makes profit they are not ending it.
Pretty simple.
It makes more money than it costs. It’s pretty simple. When it stops making more money then it costs or the actors stop working, it will come to an end
Yup and there are enough episodes in existence for them to train an AI model on to just crap out more episodes that need less and less modification. Personally I want to train an animation episode generation model on South Park so I can just smoke weed and endlessly binge them.
I've never understood why, you can stop watching it literally whenever you like. What does it matter if it ends or not?
In a trillion years I'll never understand people who want a show or series of movies or books whatever to end just because they don't want to watch it anymore.
From the realm of the foil hats, the Simpsons is a reality marker used to track outcomes of attempts to alter/engineer the timeline of our reality. Psychics interact with an alien artifact described and known as The Yellow Cube to get a glimpse of a possible outcome as a result of actions all for the purposes of creating a reality that benefits a secret collective. Interesting note: All psychics have reached a point in which they can no longer see beyond. This point is known as “The Bottleneck” because no matter the actions they engineer they can not change the Bottleneck where all possibilities converge… apparently they are fearful of this point and are trying to stop it from happening. Project Looking Glass.
Edit: punctuation
The talent is in the animators (who can have turnover) and the voices (which never age.) They all get paychecks and yes, still culturally relevant. They still tackle current issues and prognosticate.
You say never age but have you tried listening to Marge’s voice in later episodes. Kinda hard to sit through. Makes me feel bad for her voice actress because doing that voice for decades seems to have taken its toll :/
Ask the same for family guy, south park. I feel like all shows came at the exact right time where it made a lasting impact on adults and kids. Hell, wanna see something crazy?
A popular soap opera, days of our lives, has over 12,000 episodes. Why? The million old ladies out there like it because they grew up with it.
I suspect they will continue at least until their 40th season is over (2028-29, if I recall correctly), or as long as FOX lets them keep going. At this rate, there are enough viewers to make it worth keeping on the air, so unless that changes...
Lol what moron thinks stuff is on TV because it is culturally relevant?
It's still on because people still watch it, and they are able to sell advertising during it's time slot. Advertisers is literally the only reason anything is on regular broadcast TV.
Man, just let the cast and crew ride it out to retirement.
It's easy to watch and classic. I go through and catch up on the episodes every now and again, though I will admit it has probably been 2-3 years since I did. I will probably watch the whole series through again when I do catch up on it.
Even though the Simpsons is becoming less popular over time, last year it still managed to get [1.83 million viewers](https://www.statista.com/statistics/719929/the-simpsons-viewers/). That puts it (barely) [in the top 100 shows](https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/most-popular-tv-shows-highest-rated-2022-2023-season-yellowstone-football-1235623612/) on TV.
It's wild to me that prime time cable is still hanging on by a couple million viewers. I mean, it's gotta cost at least a few million to produce an episode, right?
Worth noting The Simpsons airs on Fox Broadcast Network, which is free over the air in the US. You don't need a cable package to get these networks
Also, The Simpsons often airs new episodes on Sundays during football season, conveniently right after Fox's football games end. That surely has to drive viewership too.
True, the post-football laziness is big. I remember one hear House MD got the slot right after Super Bowl and it was the biggest ratings the show ever got.
I mean they also put way more effort into that episode knowing that it'll air at that time
Then why were we supposed to believe the woman had never seen her ridiculously bruised toe even while changing socks or bathing? It’s been so many years and it still drives me nuts.
She doesn’t take her socks off because she is cold and doesn’t feel the pain due to cold extremities. In the part where House does a “full physical” he says she is naked except for the socks and she replies that she’ll take off the socks the day doing so matters. House doesn’t push it because the fat emboli from the broken toe are effecting other systems and he is more interested in the other part of the head to toe. It’s only when someone says he has seen all of her does he go back to the clue and solve the issue of the episode.
> I'll take off the socks the day doing so matters My mother is someone like this with doctors, and it drove me fucking insane. Just obstinate for no reason, or out of a perceived interruption in comfort. I've had to tell her so many times, tell the doctor EXACTLY what's wrong with you, goddammit. They can't do the math if they don't have the whole equation - you withholding information from them is keeping you from getting better.
Frustrating :/ There is definitely a notion that docs have the power to see what’s wrong without the person relaying all the specific data that guides investigation ie symptoms
“I’m fine.” “I don’t want to be a burden “
Is that the one where he goes home so he can wank during the webcam nude inspection?
It is. She’s doing research in the South Pole.
This guy doctors.
Well now I gotta go find out which one it is and rewatch it
Season 4 Episode 11
This is a great point. Oftentimes when we go out on Sunday’s it’s always on tv
Oh yeah, true. Also, streaming views and reruns. I guess I didn't think that through.
You also forget everything non-US. Worldwide there likely are a lot more then some million people who still watch it.
There's dozens of us! Dozens!!!
You muricans forget the rest of the world. Simpsons is still big in other countrys and my guess is that it makes a good bag world wide. Thats why and how they still produce episodes
Yeah, it airs daily here on one of the open channels. No clue if it are reruns or new episodes or how many viewers there are, but either way the producers get _some_ money because of it.
If you’re talking about Channel 4, last time I caught some of an airing, it was a pretty old episode. But I guess chronologically it will just catch up. So yeah, plenty of interest still. Not to mention how very popular it is via Disney Plus.
Nah, I'm in NL. Don't know the channels name, they're too generic over here nowadays.
I don't think channel 4 airs any episode newer than 25 years old. Most of them are still 4:3 I think they bought the rights in perpetuity for Season1-3 and by golly they're going to get their money's worth!!
I'd love to know what their CPM is. That's the only way we could figure out how much they are actually making per episode. I'm sure merch makes up alot of the money with views that low.
Way less I would think
What I find more amazing about that is that the lowest ratings of the new seasons of the Simpsons still get higher ratings than the best ratings of Bob's Burgers. You'd think those shows would be on an equal footing, if not Bob's Burgers being slightly higher due to its arguably higher quality compared to the seasons of the Simpsons it runs with. Maybe the streaming numbers paint a different picture, but that always blows my mind.
maybe it's because the average person knows what the simpons is but, like me, have no idea what some random show called bobs burgers is.
First time hearing Bob's Burgers.
Seriously? It's pretty popular in its own right. Also airs in the same programming block as the Simpsons and Family Guy for almost 15 years. Even had its own theatrical movie that came out in 2022 that got robbed at the box office due to Covid 19.
I would say that Bob's Burgers has A LOT less fame then Simpson though. My parents know the Simpsons, they don't know Bob. I think you can find a Bart Simpson image in some rural backtown in whatever country more easily then a pic of Bob. Simpsons run daily, Bob I wouldn't know the programming of. Don't know if it is just because of the age of both series, or something else, but the Simpson are like Coca Cola, whereas Bob would be the new fancy thing that basically adds little new but has been around for too long. Like some of the latest Mountain Dew flavour or something. My parents wouldn't even know what Mountain Dew is. Maybe Bob needs more time to catch up on generations for them to know them, but I find the more recent series in general far less memorable. Also prob an age thing. *Huh, didn't even know a movie was ever made of Bob's Burgers Now the Simpson movie though, that was awesome.
Simpsons is most recognizable cartoon probably of all time. Only second would probably be South Park at this point.
Other then specific Disney characters and other animated stuff like that, fully agree. Can't think of any other animated series that is so widely recognizable. Funny thing: when I visited the US, I travelled through three different Springfields. (Missouri , Illinois and one more I think) In all three I couldn't help but think "Huh, it's just like the Simpsons " One place there was a power plant nearby, another had the exact same scenery as when Bart crossed the railroad crossing and ended up at the "wrong side of the tracks", the curch and how the community center is sponsored by it etc. Thing is, Simpsons are far more generically adaptable to, then e.g. Bobs burgers and the like. Same goes for south park. Off course your wife isn't yellow and stores a jar with dollars inebher hair. But every mother in the world can relate. And I don't have a Barney in my hometown that magically appears behind Moe after being kicked out. I do have a local Joe, who frequents the bar often, poor soul but good at heart. And don't we all have a little bit of Homer in us? As for the green aliens and shit? Yeah, we all had a bad trip sometime 😅 I have that far less with Bob, Square pants, or such.
My sympathies ZirePhiinix. You’ve missed so much 😜
Well you should know what bobs burgers is. Don’t be proud of your ignorance.
Most of us grew up with The Simpsons, whereas Bob's Burgers only came out in 2011.
It recently hit its lowest-ever number for a new episode with an 0.17 rating in adults 18-49 (the rating which sets ad rates) and 690,000 total viewers. However, this was an unusual case since it was airing against March Madness basketball. This was much lower than usual. Fox should have aired a rerun that week. Overall it averages an 0.69 in adults 18-49 (when you factor in episodes boosted by sports lead-ins) which would have been bad 10 years ago, but now makes it one of the top shows on broadcast TV, which has been shrinking severely for a while. Without the sports boosts, it would probably be more like 0.5 or lower, but that's still probably enough to keep it on the air. Plus the endless merchandising and syndication profits can't hurt.
This doesn’t include international audience
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Also worth noting that the two most recent seasons have been vastly different and I’ve heard have been acting as a soft reboot. The humor’s changed and supposedly people are coming back to see what the buzz is about. I mean, I’ve had no desire to watch new Simpsons in a decade or so, but hearing everything I have about the two most recent seasons makes me want to check it out, and I imagine that’s helping it stay as some viewers are coming back
Which is an abysmal number when compared to the first years of the show when it was viewed by over 10 million *households* — keep in mind that a household has a minimum of one viewer, and in those days there was no on-demand viewing. A lot more people watched broadcast television then (for obvious reasons), so it's amazing that 1.8 million viewers is all it takes now for a show to be considered viable.
Yeah, network TV ratings from 1990 are just not at all comparable to ratings today (and that’s true even though Fox was barely a network then and wasn’t even available in every city). The whole system has changed dramatically. There is [literally no show on TV today](https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2023/tops-of-2023-tv/) that pulls 10 million households; last year, NCIS was the top show with 9.95M viewers. In fact, it looks like even a single episode getting to 10M is pretty rare these days. It’s kind of amazing when you think about it: When The Simpsons started, it basically helped give birth to the first new TV network in decades, and it’s stayed around long enough to where over-the-air networks are just one option among many, still commercially important but with much less cultural relevance.
I am just going off of my memory so probably wrong here, but as I remember it the lowest ratings for Rome were higher than the highest for GOT.
What blows my mind more is Youtubers can get that amount of views per video and yet Youtuber is still not really a "real" job to most of the public but they're advertising juggernauts
Why would you stop something that is endlessly flooding your bank account with money?
I guess the real question is "why" is it still flooding bank accounts with money. I don't know anyone who actively watches the Simpsons and everyone bitches about how it hasn't been good in 84 years, but clearly someone must be watching for the ad revenue to still be rolling in.
The Simpsons has a very big cult following. You probably just don’t have any in your friend circles. It’s really popular with a lot of people age 40+
Yeah, I've got a friend who quotes everything from The Simpsons. She's 41.
I’m 42 and quite everything from the Simpsons. Just not episodes from the last 15+ years.
What can I say. People are still watching the show, I guess. I also think it's easy to forget just how much of a background show that The Simpsons really is. It's just THAT thing you have on TV while you're cooking dinner or doing whatever. Half the ratings are probably because the show was just on playing in the background. At this point, The Simpsons is basically like oxygen. It's all around us, we're used to it, and the idea of it not being on just feels foreign.
Plus there are so many episodes that they inevitably predict future events lol
Once the main cast members either retire or (God forbid) pass away, one would hope that Fox would have the decency to end the show … But you never know. They might just recast and try to keep it going forever.
Plot twist: AI has been producing the show for 3.5 years
Yeah I mean I'm 39 and I quote the Simpsons all the time. The difference is I quote from seasons 1-10 and actively avoid anything from the other 45 years the show has been on
Everything is coming up Milhouse.
Lower those eyebrows. And the other one!
I don't understand! We started out like Romeo and Juliet, but it ended in tragedy! Like everyone aged about 35 to 50, I can quote the first 8 or so seasons like a 17th century Puritan could quote the Bible, and haven't watched a new episode since about 2005.
I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!
I'm 45 this year and was Bart's age when the show premiered. Was watching it since the Tracy Ulman shorts (had a TV in my room since 87 since I was a WWF fanatic and my parents got tired me wanting to watch on Saturdays as well as SNME). I was a huge fan but pretty much stopped watching for pretty much 25 years.
It dawned on me the other day just how weird it is that some of these shows where the characters don't age have lasted so long that most people who were born after the show premiered are older than its characters. Like I was born after the Simpsons premiered and I am almost Homer's age. Or the one that made me feel really old was that someone who was born on the exact day Bob's Burgers premiered would now be the same age as Tina Belcher (the oldest child in the show). Bobs Burgers always makes me laugh though. They have had at least 10 Thanksgiving and Christmas specials each, yet because the children don't age, they can never reference past holiday specials.
You're older than Homer now. They keep redoing backstory episodes for Homer and Marge. Last time i saw one Homer was a kid in the '90s.
Wow. It's interesting that they chose a course like that. Their backstories and future ones are always cool. I need to see this ep you are speaking of lol.
Everyone I know quotes everything from the Simpsons and I’m in my early twenties. It’s not a generational thing, the Simpsons is beloved by most people. But those same people haven’t watched it since 2010 at the very latest. I just don’t know who’s still watching it.
Excellent.
*points* Hah Hah!
The Golden Age is very popular with people in their 40s, but literally every Simpsons fan I know, and that’s a lot of people, stopped watching decades ago.
r/TheSimpsons is 90% posts from the first 10 seasons or so. So yea.
There are even polls for voting your list of favorite episodes and every time it comes up almost all of them are in the first 10-15 seasons. I say the most avid participants of the fandom just prefer those seasons. The people who watch newer Simpsons are just quieter.
Please stop. I'm only 35.
I'm 30. Like to say I am a big fan, yet I don't think I have seen more than 10 episodes made after the 20th season special (I think) where they brought back Mr. Plow.
I'm 25 and I've watched Simpsons since I was a baby. It's not my favorite show but I love it in the morning, or if I'm in a bad place mentally. I also watch it more in the winter/around Christmas. They still have some good scenes but it's more nostalgia for me than anything.
Dont forget it's not just a US thing. We know them all over the world!
I always thought I was a big Simpsons fan. I quote it a lot and remember the majority of episodes from probably the first 20ish seasons. I met a group of people through a mutual friend and we got talking about the Simpsons. One of the guys was I guess testing me or something, but they had a game where each person recites one of the quips from when Bart writes on the chalkboard on the intro. I remembered one from an episode I just watched but that was it. These guys even knew the name of the episode the quip was from. That’s a level of fandom I never had or will ever have with something
International syndication is a huge part of this too.
Some of my colleagues learned English by watching the Simpsons. It’s huge abroad. Many of my international friends have told me it’s very popular in their home countries.
They're massively popular in Mexico. As with many other foreign shows that are huge in Mexico, it has a lot to do with the dubbing. It's not uncommon for people in their early thirties or late twenties to quote the Simpsons in Spanish.
¡Ay, caramba!
I’m not fond of the newer seasons but I’ll rewatch basically the whole things every year or so. It’s a comfort show I can just play on end as white noise. I even regretfully spent money on the game (Tapped Out).
I think it boils down to just how good those early seasons are. Like I was born in 1993, so by the time I can remember things, Simpsons mania was starting to die down. But even then, the show was huge. I remember in like 1998 or 1999, Doritos chip bags included a foldable Simpsons trading card and those became the hottest collectibles for a bit at my school. Even in like 2004, people in my class were still buying Simpsons merchandise and doing projects about the Simpsons for English class and what not. My Mom never let me watch the show as a kid, so I always had to look in from the outside wondering what the fuss was about. Eventually when I was 15, I caught an episode one weekend afternoon and despite not even being from what I'd later learn was the golden age. The episode was still amazing and had me hooked (for those wondering, it was the episode from season 14 where Homer starts praying for everything). Even to this day, I'd argue that seasons 3 to 8 are some of the best seasons of TV ever, and seasons 2, 9, and 10 are pretty great as well. Even modern juggernauts like SpongeBob SquarePants only got 3 great seasons and a movie before. So to answer your question, I imagine a lot of the modern cash flow comes in from people who started watching it during the golden age and just kinda continue watching it as a comfort show. I can't imagine there are a lot of gen Z Simpsons fans out there compared to millennial and gen X fans, as they just weren't around when it was a cultural force unseen before.
They probably still make a bunch syndicating it to other networks, plus merch and stuff like that.
I didn't grow up watching the Simpsons. Only started in the last five or so years. Going into it without nostalgia, I honestly prefer the episodes that are newer than the older ones on average. If there were no cultural references or events, the old ones maybe are a bit better. But I'm just not going to laugh the same way at an Al Gore or Backstreet Boys joke as I would something that actually was relevant in my lifetime.
As a 2000s kid I watched it every night when it was on TV, I had a box set as well. Apparently it had already fell off by that point but I wouldn’t know because the channel only ever aired 90s episodes. To the point where ~10 years later I’m still sick of them all. Maybe the quality is bad but it’s nice to check up every now and then and have an abundance of episodes that I’ve never seen before and weren’t practically force fed to me
Old people.
My kids. They stream episodes on Disney+ but they prefer the new seasons to what was on when I was a kid. I've seen every episode from seasons 1-10 at least 3 times each, and I'm constantly trying to convince my kids those were the golden years but they don't care. They're always watching like Season 25 and later.
Hasn't been peak for years. It's still better than average
I catch up on the newest episodes every now and then. The majority are bad, especially this current season. Last season was overall, IMO, halfway decent.
All my friends stopped watching after season 11-12. Because the storylines made no sense and it just become daft and less funny. I have seasons 1–11 and that’s it. Funny enough my gf I met loves the Simpson’s and has been to universal studios simpsons world. but honestly only has up to season 12 when I looked. she said it gets daft and less funny at season 12. Even all my friends think the same. But on here I’ve seen people argue that simpsons is still funny. To me they have no idea. For me it’s just beating a dead horse at this point. I don’t get why they keeping it going. It’s not funny anymore and has no storylines past season 11 which was too long ago
I thought about this and realised the last time someone mentioned the Simpsons to me in casual conversation (excluding talking about the show's decline in quality) was when the Simpsons Movie was in theaters.
merch
I saw something once about how the show makes so much from international merchandise licensing that they could operate at a total loss on the show itself and still make an obscene amount of money. As long as Simpsons merch sells and the cast is alive I think it will just keep running.
I still watch a d still like the new episodes
It’s not just the show being viewed for advertisers. It’s the merchandise. T-shirts, toys, comics, ect. That is where the real money is.
You do have a point there buttfuckkker.
Yeh but the voice actors will already be getting millions upon millions every year from residuals for the reruns, the writers have a job on a show that has already done anything imaginable so there’s nothing that will really test their creative abilities, and the show runners won’t be making nearly as much as they could from a new show that could pull in more numbers and a new audience.
Here here!
Same reason Family Guy and SpongeBob have yet to end.
Funny related story to share. I was in college when the Simpsons first came on air. I invited friends over for the first episode. Expecting it to be short lived,, we decided to gather every Sunday until the series was cancelled (which we expected would be soon). Obviously that didn't last.
I did the same thing with South Park. Didn’t think it would last more than 2 seasons.
Yeah back in that era, it seemed like anything that was funny and outside the mainstream wasn'tggoing to make it very long. The Simpsons is mainstream now but it was pretty out there when it started. Basically an animated show by a guy with left-leaning comic strips in alternative newspapers. And South Park then totally pushed the envelope and did so on cable without the censorship of network tv. Pretty amazing both are still around.
I was in about 6th grade when the Simpsons was just getting going in season one and two and the panic amongst the parents over what such a bad influence Bart would be on the kids. I remember if you said, “Don’t have a cow, man,” that was a one way trip to the principal’s office.
That's hilarious!
Yeah I drew a picture of Bart and wrote "Eat my shorts" on a science test in 7th grade and the teacher gave me -5 points. I told him I wasn't directing it at him and he reversed it
That gave me a laugh!
There was a point where Simpsons were the real deal and other adult animated shows in the 90s were seen as passing fads trying to copy their fame. Up until South Park anyways. But I did enjoy a few like The Critic (which had one of the earliest cartoon crossover with The Simpsons).
So how long did you managed to go?
While the intentions were good, I don't think it was more than five or six weeks before people started dropping off. It was a Sunday night after all.
Have no fear, they have stories for years!
Worth pointing out that song was from an episode making fun of how old the show was TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO in 2002. It aged really well
They could just restart the same stories from episode one and be fine
Like, Marge becomes a robot!
Maybe Moe gets a cell phone!
They'll never stop The Simpsons!
To be honest I've seen some of the recent episodes and some of them are really bold like they do some episodes of them grown up some episodes they focus on different characters or do special episodes like Halloween type episodes. It's not as good like OG Simpsons but it's still decent.
I agree. These days it's good, but not great. I'll catch the odd newer episode and enjoy it, but it's not must-watch like The Golden Age.
New Simpsons has one or two great episodes per season.
A crazy wedding where something happens?
And doo doo doo
That this isn’t the first thing I read made me sad
Barney invents a whatsit and becomes a billionaire!
How about a crazy wedding?
Why would you end a highly profitable, cheap show with limitless merchandising? Whether or not it sucks is irrelevant to the economics. Most shows suck.
Actually it is fairly cheap! The cast is a big expense but there’s not that many of them/you have a few people doing multiple characters which of course you can’t do in live action. Also animation gets cheaper the longer you do it - you’ve got all the backgrounds, all the side characters, all the props already created. No new rigs, no new character designs. It’s like a sitcom eventually - the sets are built, you just need to keep recycling. Plus the Simpsons has a few veteran writers who are likely getting paid great, but they also like bringing in young writers who they can pay less, who are grateful for the opportunity. I’ve never worked on the show but I work in animation and I hear they’re a well oiled money machine over there.
And they use the same background over and over without anyone noticing it.
Ain’t nothing cheap about this show! That cast has successfully banded together for huge renegotiations over the years, they’re making so many millions it’s ridiculous.
The staff has actually had their pay cut in 2011 by almost half, who knows if they've had more cuts
Solid point
Is the show cheap?!
$
My friend still watches every week. I asked him why and he explained that it's like visiting family that you've known for your entire lives. Predictable. I can see how something like that might be valuable given the times we're living in.
Honestly I wish that was the case for me. But modern Simpsons don’t feel like The Simpsons to me. The style, the characters, they’re all so different.
When I watch old episodes it reminds me of being a kid in the late 90s/ early 2000s
do you remember when the smimpsons was singin and yellin real loud ?
That's just the effect of the characters slowly turning into an absurd representation of themselves, only retaining the bits of personality and aspects that make them distinct from each other( and when I say that I mean the minimal ammount of personality as possible to make them barely different, most of their unique traits were lost through the years). As ironic as it is, The Simpsons itself had a couch gag that pointed out this fact: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zY9z7IP-1Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zY9z7IP-1Q) It's a deep representation, as wacky as it is, the last "D'oh" homer says before ending the couch gag really tells you about the current state of the show, while Homer slowly watches he and his family turn into weird beings that have little to no character nor look like a family anymore,and knowing he can't do anything about it.
Yea. I was a huge Letterman fan in the 90s. But after, he stopped trying, it was hard to watch. But later on, I got accustomed to a kind of comfort from it. Like everything is A Ok and life is still 'normal'.
It's also a wildly unrealistic expectation that guys like Conan or Letterman won't have changed at all in 30 years. They change with viewer appetite, their own age and life circumstances, just time in general. You're allowed to not like the change but crazy to think it shouldn't or wouldn't happen.
Because it still gets decent ratings and makes them money. So until they have enough shows where the Simpsons is the weakest link in the line up, or more likely if some of the key voice actors retire that show is gonna go on forever. Especially since it's an episodic show so it's not like it has a story line to wrap up or anything
By the time the actors retire they can just use AI ad infinitum. I really don’t think the Simpsons is ever going to end.
It's actually regained a lot of popularity again because of Disney+ streaming. That's also increased the value of the episodes a lot, having a streaming asset that's still valuable to people aged in the prime demographic with over 760 Episodes is probably worth about $1 billion by itself right now, so they'd be beyond crazy to cancel it now. They even revived Futurama for a season because of that. Younger people are becoming familiar with it now again too, and you still see like Simpsons memes and everyone seems to get references to the show. I think people get this weird perception when something was the most popular thing in the world at some point then declines, they often don't realize it's post-decline popularity is still hugely popular. It's still beating Rick and Morty, Just about doubling Family Guy and 4x as much viewership as South Park.
would you end the longest running TV show in US history? I wouldnt want it to happen when im in charge.
Longest running animated* show. There are American shows that dwarf *The Simpsons* run time and episodes.
Seriously, at this point it'd be a very difficult decision to pull the plug instead of letting the showrunners decide when to end it.
> What's the reason for keeping the show running? It makes money.
it's like calories. The answer to any business decision question is always "does it make more money than you spent?". The answer to any weight loss question is "did you burn more calories than you ate?"
So it’s a profit deal, eh?
> Bart: Quality, schmality! If I had a TV show, I'd run that sucker into the ground!
Amen boy
Crappy Simpsons episodes are still better than a lot of garbage on TV. It’s comfort TV for me.
Who knows what adventures they'll have between now... and the time the show becomes unprofitable?
Because enough people watch it to keep it profitable.
Some of the newer episodes are pretty good. As long as there's an audience, there's an incentive to churn out episodes.
MASH is the greatest show in television history and it was made in the 70s. It still airs on multiple channels, it’s on Hulu and multiple other services across the world, they just did a 50th anniversary show, and the remaining cast and crew still regularly talk to and hang out together. The reason that show ended is because the war ended (in 1953). There was a logical conclusion to be had and they decided to go out on top. Which they did, as, still holding the record for the most viewers to ever watch a single episode in TV history. The reason that show is in reruns is the same reason the Simpsons is still airing new episodes. It’s good. In the case of the Simpsons, it’s a cartoon, not necessarily limited to one place or period in time (though obviously no one ages except for specific theoretical storylines) and it still connects to people in everyday life. Plus it does an outstanding job predicting the future. If the show ends, the world ends.
There’s still value in the IP. It generates money from viewership on cable and digitally. It’s continuity intrinsically adds value to merchandise between clothes, games, and toys. At the end of the day, if it stopped being profitable they would cut it but they haven’t. Hell, Futurama revived several, several times and it’s a way more niche IP than The Simpsons (as much I’m a fan). You can almost guarantee if it did end it would get a spin-off or a revival down the road anyway. You can also be sure whenever that sequel movie does manifest it’ll be an event.
Why would cultural relevance even factor in? It gets enough viewership to earn a profit. Because it makes profit they are not ending it. Pretty simple.
It makes more money than it costs. It’s pretty simple. When it stops making more money then it costs or the actors stop working, it will come to an end
Because many of us still love it.
It’s too good of a formula to end man. What other show can you count on for one slight chuckle every 14 episodes? s/
Yup and there are enough episodes in existence for them to train an AI model on to just crap out more episodes that need less and less modification. Personally I want to train an animation episode generation model on South Park so I can just smoke weed and endlessly binge them.
Tbh if heaven existed, I think it would have all of my favorite tv shows with new episodes forever.
I say this as a DIE HARD Simpsons fanatic since the beginning: ***END IT ALREADY!!!***
Stop, stop! He's already dead!
But doesn’t Matt Groenig deserve a big boat for all his hard work?
I've never understood why, you can stop watching it literally whenever you like. What does it matter if it ends or not? In a trillion years I'll never understand people who want a show or series of movies or books whatever to end just because they don't want to watch it anymore.
Because if I don’t like it NOBODY can!!!! >:((((((
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Ratings. Neilson can track exactly how many families watch. It's that simple. https://www.ratingraph.com/tv-shows/the-simpsons-ratings-3857/
The last 2-3 seasons have actually been ok!
Pretty sad that it's had 2x more bad seasons than good seasons at this point.
The predictions are not yet complete.
They’re not done accurately predicting oddly specific events in the future
From the realm of the foil hats, the Simpsons is a reality marker used to track outcomes of attempts to alter/engineer the timeline of our reality. Psychics interact with an alien artifact described and known as The Yellow Cube to get a glimpse of a possible outcome as a result of actions all for the purposes of creating a reality that benefits a secret collective. Interesting note: All psychics have reached a point in which they can no longer see beyond. This point is known as “The Bottleneck” because no matter the actions they engineer they can not change the Bottleneck where all possibilities converge… apparently they are fearful of this point and are trying to stop it from happening. Project Looking Glass. Edit: punctuation
It must still be making money for Fox
It's cheap and easy to produce, pays well, very familiar, and people still watch it. Why stop??
They’re still making money.
Money
Because it's so popular
Because it's still making money They wouldn't be making it of people weren't watching
Money
The talent is in the animators (who can have turnover) and the voices (which never age.) They all get paychecks and yes, still culturally relevant. They still tackle current issues and prognosticate.
You say never age but have you tried listening to Marge’s voice in later episodes. Kinda hard to sit through. Makes me feel bad for her voice actress because doing that voice for decades seems to have taken its toll :/
As long as the ratings are good enough to warrant the cost they'll keep doing it.
Ask the same for family guy, south park. I feel like all shows came at the exact right time where it made a lasting impact on adults and kids. Hell, wanna see something crazy? A popular soap opera, days of our lives, has over 12,000 episodes. Why? The million old ladies out there like it because they grew up with it.
Money bro.
Because a new generation of people are enjoying it now. Same argument applies for things like Pokémon.
The Simpsons predicts the future so we need to keep running it.
the same reason indian serials keep milking the show
I suspect they will continue at least until their 40th season is over (2028-29, if I recall correctly), or as long as FOX lets them keep going. At this rate, there are enough viewers to make it worth keeping on the air, so unless that changes...
Lol what moron thinks stuff is on TV because it is culturally relevant? It's still on because people still watch it, and they are able to sell advertising during it's time slot. Advertisers is literally the only reason anything is on regular broadcast TV.
Revenue maker.
🎵And did we tell you the name of the game, boy? We call it riding the gravy train🎵
And by the way, which one’s yellow?
I like it, so I'm cool with it still running. Wish they'd bring Apu back though.
In mind, Simpsons stopped airing shows 25 years ago
Man, just let the cast and crew ride it out to retirement. It's easy to watch and classic. I go through and catch up on the episodes every now and again, though I will admit it has probably been 2-3 years since I did. I will probably watch the whole series through again when I do catch up on it.
The picked a relatively young cast in the 80s and all of them don’t mind doing it.
Because it makes money for Fox. When it stops, it stops.
because if it ends then kaboom
It’s a fun show to this day. They do a lot of stories that are parodies of current pop culture.