The U.S have the budgets to make big shows, look at shows like LOST, 24, Supernatural, Smallville, Mad Men, Walking Dead, Breaking Bad..etc. The U.K does not have those kind of budgets but we do have fantastic writers. If you look at some of the shows that CH4 have given us in the last few years, UTOPIA, BLACK MIRROR and Dead Set (the latter two from the same writer) and stuff from Sky like Hit & Miss, they are well written shows but do suffer from lower budgets. unfortunately the BBC and ITV still cater to the older generation with shows like the god awful New Tricks, Downton Abby and however many other cop shows/period drama's that they make. the average length for a single season of a network show is 23 episodes at 42 minutes per episode, the average length for a U.K show is 6-13 episodes and they average 60 minutes per episodes, when you look at the shows that try to emulate the style of U.S TV they tend to look cheap, Primeval and Doctor Who, which although they are quite popular, they are essentially kids shows, dinos and aliens. I would say that the U.S is superior in the amount of shows that they have but the U.K is superior in the writing.
Does this make sense?
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