an episode is new ("(N)"), with reruns getting no notation. Repeats in the United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, most drama and comedy series run for shorter seasons – typically six, seven or thirteen episodes – and are then replaced by others. An exception is soap operas, which are either on all year round (for example, EastEnders and Coronation Street), or are on for a season similar to the American format. As in the U.S., fewer new episodes are made during the summer. Until recently it was also common practice for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 to repeat classic shows from their archives, but this has more or less dried up in favor of newer (and cheaper) formats like reality shows, except on the BBC where older BBC shows, especially sitcoms like Dad's Army and Fawlty Towers, are frequently repeated. Syndication did not exist as such in United Kingdom until the arrival of satellite, cable and later, from 1998 on, digital television, although it could be argued that many ITV programs up to the early 1990s, particularly imported programming was syndicated in the sense that each ITV region bought some programs independently of the ITV Network, and in particular many programs out of prime time made by smaller ITV stations were "part-networked" where some regions would show them and others would not. Nowadays there are many channels in the UK (for example, Gold) which repackage and rebroadcast "classic" programming from both sides of the Atlantic. Some of these channels, like their U.S. counterparts, make commercial timing cuts; others get around this by running shows in longer time slots, and critics of timing cuts see no reason why all channels should not do the same. It has been common practice by networks, notably the BBC, to rerun some series after they have not fared particularly well on their original run. This was particularly common with sitcoms such as The Office, which had very low ratings in its first series, as well as a poor reception from both critics and focus groups and was almost cancelled. The series started to gain traction once the BBC decided to repeat it in a different timeslot and The Office went on to be an award-winning and critically acclaimed show which has regularly featured in lists of the Best Sitcoms ever. In 2019, the series was ranked 6th on The Guardian's list of the 100