Syndication is a general term for the sale of television shows by their owners to individual stations and networks, both foreign and domestic.

Most popular American television shows premiere on one of the six U.S. broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, UPN, or WB. Networks usually add new shows to their schedules after evaluating pilots developed by production studios like Columbia Tri-Star and 20th Century Fox Television. In some cases, networks develop shows internally and charge outside studios with some or all of the routine production duties. An example of the latter is NBC's Saturday Night Live, developed by NBC but produced in part by Lorne Michaels' "Broadway Video, Inc." It is typically the developer which owns a television show, and licenses its rights to broadcasters.

Because of the higher ratings potential, production studios first seek a network interested in licensing the shows they develop. If unsuccessful, studios alternately market their shows directly to individual stations. This is known as "front-end syndication." Front-end syndication operates just like network broadcasting, where a new episode is provided almost every week to stations, and summer months are generally filled with current-season repeats. Star Trek: The Next Generation is one example of a series that found its audience through front-end syndication.

The most common form of syndication is "back-end syndication." This is where episodes of shows formerly licensed to networks (or shown in front-end syndication) may be found. The back-end syndication of a program typically begins after it completes its fourth season. By that point, the show's owner is left about 100 episodes that are generating no profit: the front-end stations or network licensee is busy showing only new episodes and repeats of episodes from the present season. Back-end syndication makes episodes from former seasons profitable again by selling them directly to stations interested in airing old episodes 5-7 days per week. Buyers of back-end lincense deals can include cable networks, independent stations, or even the stations already buying new episodes from front-end syndication (or affiliated with the network to which new episodes are being licensed).

The final form of syndication is "international syndication." This is the licensing of episodes old and new to broadcasters in other nations. International broadcasters may schedule episodes in any order (and with any frequency) desired, often delaying the premiere of new episodes by months or even years. The sole exception to this rule is Canada, where current-season episodes of American shows (new and repeat) must be synchronized with American network and front-end syndication schedules. This prevents a situation where Canadian viewers would see new episodes via signals from south of their border before Canadian broadcasters themselves aired the new episodes locally. For this reason, while other international broadcasters receive new episodes via tape shipment, all Canadian broadcasters obtain new episodes of American shows via special satellite pre-feeds days before their American TV premiere dates.

The Simpsons is produced by Gracie Films and 20th Century Fox Television. 20th Century Fox Television is the owner of the series. It licenses new and current-season repeat episodes in the United States to the Fox Broadcasting Company (the Fox network), and to 20th Century Fox International Television (which re-sells its rights via international syndication to broadcasters such as Canada's "Global" network, the UK's "Sky" satellite broadcasting service, and Australia's "Channel 10"). Back-end syndication of The Simpsons began in 1994 and is offered to United States and select Canadian broadcasters by Twentieth Television (not to be confused with 20th Century Fox Television).

The remainder of this FAQ will focus on the back-end form of syndication.

In back-end syndication, programming is sold via "barter," "cash," and "cash-plus-barter" contracts. Some shows are offered on two or more of these contacts simultaneously. For instance, if your local station broadcasts two episodes daily, one episode might be on a barter contract, while the other is purchased on a cash basis.

Under a barter contract, all episodes are fed to stations at no charge via satellite. In exchange for the free programming, some of the available commercial time is pre-loaded by the distributor (Twentieth Television) with "built-in" commercials. All stations must follow the distributor's episode scheduling, which ensures that the built-in commercials air throughout the nation on the same dates. The amount of commercial time a distributor keeps for itself under a barter contract varies from one show to the next. During the old barter runs of The Simpsons, all built-in advertising was located in the 1 minute space between the end of the second act and the "The Simpsons will be right back" bumper.

With cash contracts, stations simply buy the broadcast rights to a series, and sell all of the available commercial time to their own sponsors. This allows stations to schedule episodes as they wish. Stations under cash contracts get episodes by either building a master tape library from the satellite feeds offered to barter contracted stations, or they can order a complete set of tapes at a charge from the distributor.

Cash-plus-barter contracts offer a mixture of the principles of cash and barter contracts. For instance, three episodes a week might be offered with built-in commercials, while the commercial breaks in the remaining two are left entirely empty for the stations to fill.

The Simpsons entered back-end syndication on an exclusively barter basis. As ratings increased, additional barter runs were added. Today, The Simpsons is available only on a cash basis. The former barter runs were:

Weekdays:		Sep 19, 1994 - Sep 10, 1999 (1st national run) Apr 15, 1996 - Sep 11, 1998 (2nd run)
Weekends:		Sep 24, 1994 - Sep 13, 1997 (6th run, Saturdays) Sep 25, 1994 - Sep 17, 1995 (7th run, Sundays) Nov 3, 1996 - Sep 14, 1997 (7th run, Sundays)

See Simpsons Barter Scheduling History for complete back-end syndication information.

Episodes are cut to allow more time for commercial advertising. Episodes rarely have censorship cuts -- at least in the United States.

Back-end syndicated episodes are cut by Twentieth Television before they are distributed to the stations. Episodes in international syndication, however, are offered uncut so that the recepients may choose their own editing techniques.

Back-end syndicated episodes are also time-compressed. Episodes are played faster than normal, creating more time for advertising. Twentieth Television time-compresses episodes before they are distributed. This doesn't mean that the stations can't add more time compression or cuts. Usually stations don't; it may violate their contracts by changing the calculated cost of showing the episodes, versus "out of the box" commercial time.

Glad you asked <g>. The Simpsons Archive's Syndication Cuts Guide details all the episode cuts for American syndication and most cuts through Season 8 for Canadian syndication. See the index page for more information on Canadian cuts.

Some viewers may never have seen the excluded parts, having only viewed older episodes in syndication. The guide allows one to quickly discover if he/she's seen the uncut version of a particular episode.

Additionally, watching syndicated episodes over and over might eliminate the need or will to watch uncut versions. Entire scenes can be completely forgotten. Frederic Briere had termed this as syndication brainwashing.

This list may also be a reference for "Worst/Best cuts" discussions on alt.tv.simpsons.

Finally, this list serves as a permanent record of now rare Simpsons scenes. Uncut episodes released on DVD notwithstanding, as Edward Graham Johnson said: "I hope we can preserve this information before it is lost forever..."