When FXX took over the syndication rights of The Simpsons last year, one of the stipulations were older episodes with longer run-times were going to be edited to the modern standard of 22 minutes in order to fit in the now normal 8 minutes of advertising found within half-hour programming.
Not every network is so keen on trimming whole scenes to make run-times work for older shows, but that doesn’t mean they’re immune to tricks of their own. That’s reportedly what’s happening over at TBS.
Thanks to one crafty viewer, it seems to have been discovered that TBS has been running syndicated episodes of Seinfeld 7.5 percent faster than the show’s standard speed in order to squeeze in as much advertising as possible into the airspace. Unfortunately, while it’d be nice to say this news is shocking, it isn’t. These shows were meant to air at a time when most sitcoms ran 25 minutes, and thus it’s either this or a trim to The Simpsons in order to make them fit modern standards.
Source: Reddit