Television program

A television program is the content of television broadcasting. The content of an individual broadcast may be referred to as a television program (U.S., Canada, and Australia), television programme (UK, NZ, and Ireland) or television show. A program may be a one-off broadcast or, more usually, part of a periodically returning television series. A television series that is intended to air a finite number of episodes is usually called a miniseries. Americans call a short run lasting less than a year a season; Europeans call this a series. This season or series usually consists of 10–24 installments of the series. A single instance of a program is called an episode, although this is sometimes also called a "show" or "program." A one-off broadcast may be called a "special." A television movie is a movie that is initially aired on television rather than being released in cinemas or direct-to-video, although many successful television movies are later released on video.

Common genres

• TV comedy (typically situation comedy or sketch comedy)
• TV documentary
• TV drama (including dramedy)
• TV talk shows
• TV news
• TV current affairs shows
• TV cartoons
• TV infomercials
• TV miniseries
• Game shows
• Soap operas
• Reality TV