Q to statessiders conc. TV series pause

[I love Lyta]

I just sneakpeeked into the timetable for LOST and Smallville, and I since they're pausing for two and three weeks effective from the last air date in march I was wondering: Is there anything special happening during the first two weeks of april that would be responsible for the pause? And if not - why do they pause at all?
I know it sounds kind of stupid, but I'm curious...

[Spoo Junky]

I think it's because of the writer's strike. They usually stop in April anyway to have new shows in May for the rating sweeps.

[Joe Nazzaro]

The air-date gap on Lost is definitely strike-related. They only had X number of episodes finished before the strike, and once they were able to resume production, they decided to finish the season with a smaller number of episodes than originally planned. In order to finish post-production on that last handful of episodes, they had to be pushed back by several weeks. Even so, as was just noted above, most US series will hold their last couple of episodes until May 'sweeps' which is one of the periods during which advertising rates are established, the theory being if more people watch, the networks can charge more. I suspect a lot of those rules have gone out the window these days because of the strike.

[I love Lyta]

I see, thanks for the info.
Well, Battlestar Galactica season 4 is supposed to start in the first week of april afaik, so I guess I wont be bored.