Long-Lasting Shows & Songs

Media that has lasted the test of time.

Max Larsen, Sports Editor

These shows and songs have broken records upon records, and even with new waves of music and TV shows that rise to popularity, they still don’t replace the older industry. This is for many reasons, one example coming from the show “Friends.” This popular show is seen as “iconic,” Adam Sternbergh, a writer from The Week, says. The show continued to make episodes for eight years, until their final episode debued. Comparing this to other shows like “Drake and Josh” or “Jessie,” which tend to only last three to four seasons, “Friends” more than doubles those two shows with a total of ten seasons, which keep viewers entertained over the decades.

A major factor contributing to the shows success is that the creators, David Crane and Marta Kauffman, never saw any end goal once the show blew up. The show, and them, both hit extraordinary milestones, winning more than five Emmy Awards, which encouraged to keep the show going. According to USA Today, “Friends” makes around $1,000,000,000 per season, just from Warner Bros, which puts the show at an estimated $10,000,000,000.

Another popular TV show, “The Office,” first debuted in March of 2005, and produced its final episode in May of 2013. Even with episodes out of production, the show still brings in many new fans each day. There will most likely be reruns on TV until the creators of the show, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Greg Daniels, decide to pull it.

Although many popular TV shows are still around, you may have heard your parents say something along the lines of, “this song came out when I was a kid” when listening to a song on the radio. At this point, many of us have grown up with songs such as “Hotel California” and “Margaritaville.” For their time, these songs were groundbreaking, and everyone was tuned in to them. “Hotel California” won the Grammy Hall of Fame, and “Margaritaville” won the Country Music Association Awards, Academy of Country Music Awards, People’s Choice Award, and has been nominated for the Grammy Award twice, according to the Margaritaville website. Now, with both songs being over 40 years old, they are considered to many as classics, which keep the songs thriving and popular.

This isn’t the end for classics, though. Songs like “Despacito” and “See You Again” still play on the radio stations every day, and TV shows such as “Modern Family” and “Game of Thrones” are making names for themselves, but we will have to wait a few decades or so and see whether or not these shows and songs will continue to stay on the top of the charts or not.