Odd running times for comedies ending

Just as McDonald's has done away with giant boxes of fries and tubs of soda, NBC is ending its practice of "super-sizing" its comedies.

The scheduling gimmick, which extended the network's half-hour comedies by five to 10 minutes with extra footage -- and an extra commercial break -- won't be deployed next season (although "The Office" is still planning several hour-long episodes). Vince Manze, the network's head of scheduling, says super-sizing simply isn't as effective as it once was.

"It was a good idea when we started it. It was very novel. But it's just not a good idea to have shows starting at 9:23 p.m.," Manze tells TV Week. "I don't think anyone here thinks, at this point, super-sizing often is good for the shows. We're going to do our best to not have to do it next year."

The off-the-half-hour scheduling of super-sized episodes was tough to show in TV listings, and if an episode started even a minute or two off its scheduled time it would also mess with DVRs programmed to record them. As Manze puts it, "We're not only fooling people, we're fooling TiVos."

Super-sizing was the brainchild of then-NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker, who first extended episodes of "Friends" during the 2000-01 season, in part to keep people from flipping over to "Survivor" on CBS. Other NBC comedies joined the fray later that year, and the network has used the practice occasionally ever since.

NBC is still, however, sticking to its plan to produce five hour-long installments of "The Office" next season. But since each will run a full 60 minutes, the network should be able to avoid odd start and end times for the shows.