‘South Park’ Reduces Episode Order For Season 17

South Park‘s 17th season will be shorter than usual.

Starting on September 25, South Park will be airing 10 episodes straight instead of its usual 14 episodes split in half.

Co-creator Matt Stone told the New York Times there wasn’t any particular reason he and Trey Parker decided to change the format.

“Why did we do seven and seven to begin with? We just sort of made that up,” Stone said. “And we are switching to 10 for the same reason. It just sounded like a good number, and we won’t break up the year so we can more easily do other stuff.”

Stone acknowledged that people aren’t watching the show the way they used to. When South Park first aired in 1997, there wasn’t any TiVo or DVR to allow people to watch it later. The episodes were not available online on South Park Studios. If viewers wanted to watch an episode, they had to be in front of the TV at the appointed time, something that has changed in recent years.

“There is no appointment viewing anymore,” Stone said. “In our first season, you had to show up on Wednesday nights at 10 p.m. on the Comedy channel to catch the show. Now, I don’t even know where or how people watch our show. ”

Stone and Parker aren’t worried that cutting the episode order for the upcoming season will impact the show negatively.

“We want to keep South Park going for a long time to come,” Stone said. “And given what is going on in television, I don’t think it matters as much how many episodes you have.”

Are you disappointed that the new season of South Park will be shortened?