Follow TV Tropes

Following

Long-Runners
aka: Long Runner

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dw60.png
60 years, at least 16 Doctors, and more to come...

Previously on Doctor Who...
709 episodes ago:
— The intro to "Twice Upon a Time", referring to "The Tenth Planet"

TV shows can run as long as they want, depending on their reception. If TV shows are bad or negatively reviewed, the show would only run for like a season or two, or wouldn’t even get to complete their very first season! If the show is positively reviewed or good, it will possibly run for a couple or a bunch of seasons, depending on later reviews or budget. And other times, a show can be so good, that they can be running and can’t stop.

Long-running shows are franchises that have somehow passed the test of time. There is a clue in here for what people want to watch and listen to. Some of these shows began with bad ratings or went through creative slumps, but got here thanks to Network to the Rescue (and avoiding being Screwed by the Network). They may even end up going through several rounds of peaks and valleys. Some of these shows are even Older Than Television. And some of these shows got this status due to being Adored by the Network.

A No Recent Examples rule applies to this trope and examples shouldn't be added until 10 years after the franchise debuted. That assumes that the franchise was active for the full decade. If there's been a lengthy hiatus or a significant gap between sequels, the minimum time required will be longer.

Sub Tropes:

Sub pages:

Contrast Short-Runners.

NOTE: some of these entries may be outdated. Check dates to see if they lasted longer than the folder they're in.


    open/close all folders 

    At least 10 years 

    At least 20 years 
  • 3000 Whys of Blue Cat (1999-)
  • Ah! My Goddess (1988-2014)
  • Akagi (1991-2018)
  • Alarm für Cobra 11 (1996-present)
  • All That (1994-2005; 2019-2020)
  • The Amazing Race (2001-present)
  • American Idol (2002-present; went on hiatus from 2016 to 2018)
  • America's Most Wanted (1987-1996, 1997-2012; longest-running show on FOX. It was actually canceled in Fall 1996 but fans, law enforcement, and the governments of 32 states rallied together to successfully persuade FOX to uncancel the show a month and a half later. Upon returning, it resumed its regular Saturday-night timeslot and paired with COPS. This combination itself was a long runner as one of the longest unchanged primetime schedules in American television history lasting 15 years until it was sent to Lifetime in 2011. They would only air the program for a little under a year, ending in 2012.)
  • America's Next Top Model — (2003-present)
  • Animal Yokocho (2000-present)
  • Arthur (1996-2022), a cartoon based on the books by Marc Brown. It was the second longest-running animated series in America behind The Simpsons. However, the Grand Finale aired in February 2022 and a wrap party was celebrated by the team back in 2019. This gives the show an impressive 26-year run.
  • At the Movies (Siskel & Ebert): From 1986-99 with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, 1999-2000 with Ebert and guests, 2000-06 with Ebert and Richard Roeper, 2006-08 with Roeper and guests, 2008-09 with Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz, and 2009-10 with A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips, for a total of 24 years. Revived on PBS in 2011 as Roger Ebert Presents "At the Movies". If one counts their 1975-82 tenure on Opening Soon at a Theater Near You/Sneak Previews (which ran for another 14 years after they left for a total run of 21 years) and their 1982-86 stint on the original At the Movies, Siskel and Ebert were co-presenting film review programs for 24 years.
  • The Atheist Experience (1997-)
  • The Bachelor (2002-present)
    • The Bachelorette (2003-2005, 2008-present)
  • Bananas in Pyjamas — the "costumed" series debuted in 1991 and ended in 2002, but an All-CGI Cartoon adaptation beginning in 2011 has made the show one of these.
  • Barney & Friends: The first videos came out from 1988-1991. The show premiered in 1992. Although new episodes haven't been produced since 2010, the show is not officially cancelled, as a new season was set to premiere in 2017, although it has gone into Development Hell. In 2019, plans for a second Barney movie were announced.
  • Bastard!! (1988): First volume published in 1988 (with a one-shot pilot in 1987 titled Wizard!!). It was serialized irregularly by Weekly Jump before switching to Ultra Jump in 2000 (with a seven-year hiatus between 2001 and 2008) and as a result, only a relatively small set of 26 volumes have been published.
  • Berserk: First volume published in 1990 (with a one-shot pilot in 1989), and has been serialized in Young Animal since 1992. However, it's only published bimonthly, so it only reached a comparatively-small 38 volumes in 2016. However, the 1997-98 anime was only 25 episodes and only lasted half a year; the fact that it went through 13 volumes of story in that time is telling as to why. Despite Kentaro Miura's death in 2021, his assistants have endeavored to finish the series according to the storyline he had planned.
  • Best Motoring: Physical media including magazines and discs/tapes published from December 1987 to June 2011 (22 and a half years), before they fully went digital on YouTube which they still run today.
  • Big Brother: The show premiered in the Netherlands in 1999. While the original version has ended, several international versions continue to air and would belong here.
  • Multiple iterations of the Big Gold Belt were used on Pro Wrestling TV from 1986 until 2014, totaling 28 years.note 
  • Big Windup! (2003-present)
  • The Bill (pilot in 1983, full series in 1984, weekly since 1987. Ended in September 2010.)
  • Black Lagoon (2002-present, though it's gone on hiatus several times)
  • The Black and White Minstrel Show (1958-1978)
  • Bob the Builder (1998-present)
  • Brookside, (Channel 4 UK soap opera and one of the channel's first shows, 1982-2003)
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The movie was admittedly a flop, but it premiered in 1992, the series ran from 1996-2003, and the comic books are still coming out with season 10 right now.
  • A Certain Magical Index (2004-present; also has two continually running, highly popular spin-off manga series: A Certain Scientific Railgun and A Certain Scientific Accelerator)
  • C'est pas sorcier (1993-2014), a French Science Show.
  • Caillou (1997-2010; WildBrain revived the show in 2017 as The New Adventures of Caillou for YouTube Kids)
  • Camera Three, arts anthology series (24 years, 1956-79 on CBS and 1979-80 on PBS)
  • Captain Kangaroo (29 years, 1955-84) If you include the 1997 revival, this comes to 31 years.
  • The Carry On film franchise included at least one film a year every year from 1958-78 (followed by Carry On Columbus in 1992).
  • Charlie Rose (PBS interview show, 1991-2017)
  • Chespirito (Mexican sketch show that ran from 1968 to 1995)
    • El Chavo del ocho, which originated as a sketch in Chespirito in 1972, ran from 1972-1992.
  • Cheaters (2000-2021)
  • Chuckle Vision aired from 1987 to 2009.
  • Sanrio's Cinnamoroll, who would later become a very popular character in Japan, has been winning the hearts of Sanrio fans since 2002. Which is surprising since Sanrio itself didn't expect a character to come this close to being popular along with My Melody and Hello Kitty.
  • Cirque du Soleil troupes:
    • Saltimbanco opened in 1992, originally closed in February 1997, and was brought back in October 1998. As a tent-based tour it ran until 2006, and relaunched as an arena tour in 2007. In this form it ran until 2012.
    • Mystère has been running nonstop in Las Vegas, Nevada since 1993.
    • O has also had a nonstop Las Vegas run since 1998.
  • Concentration (24 years on NBC and in syndication {1958-78, 1987-91}, minus a five-month hiatus in 1973)
  • Crossroads, British soap opera (26 years, 1964-88 and 2001-03).
  • Cuéntame Cómo Pasó (2001-2023)
  • Curb Your Enthusiasm has aired since 2000, albeit with several hiatuses between seasons (including an eight-year break between seasons 8 and 9).
  • Cyberchase (2002-present, PBS' third-longest currently running kids' program after Sesame Street and Arthur)
  • The Daily Show (1996-present, hosted by Craig Kilborn from 1996-99, by Jon Stewart from 1999-2015, and Trevor Noah 2015-)
  • The Darkon Wargaming Club has been around since 1985.
  • Dateline (running continuously since 1992)
  • The David Susskind Show (1958-1986)
  • Dazzle (1999-present)
  • A Day in the Park with Barney has been performed daily at Universal Studios Florida since 1995.
  • Definitely Not the Opera (CBC Radio variety show since 1994, named Brand X 1994-97; hosted by Sook-Yin Lee since 2002)
  • Descendants of Darkness (1996-present)
  • Desert Punk (1997-2020)
  • Disney Dreams: An Enchanted Classic (1998-present)
  • Dixon of Dock Green (21 years, 1955-1976)
  • D.N.Angel (1997-2021, though it went on extended hiatus several times during its run)
  • Domian (1995-2016)
  • The Edge of Night (7,420 episodes from 1956-84)
  • The Ed Sullivan Show, originally titled Toast of the Town (1948-71)
  • Enjoy Yourself Tonight (Hong Kong variety show, 1967-94)
  • Family Guy (1999-present, despite being cancelled twice)
  • FC De Kampioenen (Belgian sitcom, 1990-2011)
  • Fibber McGee and Molly (aired as a standalone series from 1935-56, then as a segment on Monitor through 1959)
  • Finder Series (2002-present)
  • Firan MUX (circa 1997-)
  • Fizzy Bubbles (1998-present)
  • The Friendly Giant (Canadian children's show, 1958-85)
  • The Funday Pawpet Show (November 1999-; 600 episodes as of July 18, 2010)
  • Futari Ecchi (1997-present) holds the record for the longest running manga with near explicit sex being showcased in every single chapter, in every volume. This is due to the manga essentially being a sex-ed curriculum in manga format.
  • Downtown no Gaki no Tsukai ya Arahende!!! (Japanese comedy/variety show, running since October 1989).
  • Generations (1993-2014)
  • Gunsmoke (September 10, 1955-March 31, 1975) Famously the longest running drama series in primetime television, a title it now officially shares with Law & Order.
  • Gute Zeiten Schlechte Zeiten ("Good Times, Bad Times", German soap with 4,000+ episodes, running since 1992; based on a Dutch soap called Goede Tijden, Slechte Tijden, which has run for 3,500 episodes since 1990)
  • Habbo (A Social Network opened in 2000 at Finland, then gradually released internationally.)
  • The Halloween series: The first film came out in 1978 and there are still films in the 2020s.
  • Have I Got News for You (British satirical panel show, started 1990 and still going despite several libel cases and not having a permanent presenter since sacking Angus Deayton in 2002)
  • Hee Haw (CBS 1969-71, then in syndication through 1992)
  • Hey Hey It's Saturday (Australian variety show, 1971-99)
  • Hi-5 (Started airing in January 1999 and also spawned a very successful American incarnation.)
  • Hollyoaks (British Soap Opera produced for Channel 4 that has aired since January 1995.)
  • The Hollywood Squares (1966-81, 1986-89, 1998-2004; total of 24 years, or 25 if you count The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour {1983-84})
  • Homestar Runner (created as a children's book parody in July 1996, website created in January of 2000.)
  • Horrible Histories (1993-2013)
  • Hunter × Hunter - Published in March of 1998 and still ongoing, though definitely not continuously; currently 36 volumes and nearly 400 chapters long. Its first anime adaption by Nippon Animation aired from late 1999 to early 2001, with a final OVA series continuing from 2003 to 2004. Its second anime adaption by Madhouse lasted from 2011 to 2014, ending accordingly due to reaching too close to the current point of the manga.
  • In the Life (June 1992 - December 2012); the longest-running LGBT newsmagazine
  • Inai Inai Baa! - A Japanese children's show that airs on NHK. It premiered in 1996 and is still going.
  • Inside the Actors Studio (airing on Bravo since 1994)
  • Insight - A religious anthology series which ran from 1960 to 1985.
  • Issues and Answers (1960-81) which, along with Meet The Press and Face the Nation, represented the height of Sunday-morning political television in the US.
  • The Jerry Springer Show (running in syndication from 1991-2018, started as a public-affairs talk show based at WLWT in Cincinnati; its parent company syndicated it nationally as it slowly evolved into its current "freakshow" format. It switched distributors from Multimedia to Universal when Multimedia was bought out by a newspaper company in 1995, along with Sally Jessy Raphael's show)
  • Jeux Sans Frontières (Games Without Borders) originally ran from 1965-82, and was revived from 1988-99 for a total run of thirty tournaments in 28 years. Some of the national qualifiers likewise ran for over twenty series, including France's Intervilles (a total of 27 series intermittently between 1962 and 2015) and Britain's It's a Knockout (original run 1966-82 on The BBC, with intermittent celebrity specials from 1983-88, and two revivals, one from 1991-94 on S4C {Wales only} and one from 1999-2001 on Channel 5).
  • Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2003-present)
  • Judge Judy: (1996-2021)
  • Judge Mathis (1999-2023)
  • Junjou Romantica (2002-present)
  • Jurassic Park (6 films, 1 two-season television series, and dozens of print and video game spin-offs, 1993-2022)
  • Just for Laughs: Gags (2000-present)
  • Kabouter Plop (1997-present)
  • Kalkofes Mattscheibe, one of Germany's most prominent and most merciless parody shows, was on radio from 1991-1998, and has been on TV since 1994 (with breaks and Channel Hops). Oliver Kalkofe commented in 2014 that German TV had only become worse in the meantime.
  • Kaiji (1996-present)
  • Kaze Hikaru (1997-2020)
  • KikoRiki (2003-present; although the original show ended in 2012, the series lived on through several spin-offs, animated films and a 2020-2023 revival)
  • Klan (longest running Polish soap opera, 1997-).
  • Kotaro Makaritoru! (1982-2004; the manga originally ran from 1982 to 1995, and was followed by two sequels that ran from 1995 to 2001 and 2001 to 2004)
  • The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (2002-present)
  • Later... with Jools Holland (British variety show, 1992-)
  • Landline (Australian rural issues program, 1992-)
  • The Late Late Show (1995-2023 on CBS; hosted by Tom Snyder {1995-99}, Craig Kilborn {1999-2005}, Craig Ferguson {2005-2015}, and James Corden {2015-2023})
  • The Late Show with David Letterman (1993-2015; adding the Late Night years at NBC, a 33-year run in late-night television)
  • The Lone Ranger (a Western radio series that started a very popular franchise, it ran from 1933 to 1954)
  • Law & Order: September 13, 1990 - May 24, 2010. Fell just short of beating Gunsmoke's record, though at least they're now tied. Was the longest-running first-run drama series in primetime for all of the Turn of the Millennium. It was revived in 2022 after twelve years off the air.
  • Legend of the Five Rings (1995-present; the longest running CCG after Magic: The Gathering itself, although the original CCG officially ended in 2015 and transitioned into a living card game instead)
  • LEGO Mindstorms (1998-2022)
  • The Letter People: First broadcast in 1976, it ran clear into the 1990s.
  • Little Cherry: The comic strip has been running since 1998, although it has been mainly published in its own magazine since 2008, the same year that spawned a TV animated series, among other animated works and books.
  • The Littlest Pet Shop toy line has been in continuous production since 1992.
  • Love of Life (7,315 episodes from 1951-80)
  • Loveless (2002-present)
  • Lucky Star (2003-present; went on hiatus from 2014 to 2022)
  • Lux Radio Theatre, a weekly American radio series which adapted Hollywood films for radio broadcast, ran for 21 years, 1934-1955.
  • Mamma Mia! (First performed on the West End in 1999, and has been running ever since.)
  • Mayday (3 September 2003 - present, 20 seasons and 180 episodes and counting)
  • Maury (Maury Povich's talk show; 1991-2022. Switched distributors from Paramount to Universal in 1998)
  • Media Watch (Australian media analysis program; first aired in May 1989, isn't going anywhere any time soon)
  • Mega Man: The first game was released to the NES in 1987. The series celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2012.
  • The Men from the Ministry Finnish version (1979-2008).
  • Metal Heroes franchise (1982-1999, 2012-)
  • Midsomer Murders, which has aired on ITV since 1997 and continued even after the main character left in 2011 (replaced by his cousin).
  • Minami-ke (2004-present)
  • Les Misérables has been running on the West End since 1985.
  • Moonlight Mile (2000-present; went on hiatus from 2011 to 2021)
  • Morningside (CBC Radio morning show, 1976-97)
  • The Movie Show (running since 1986 in Australia; the original hosts switched networks in 2004 and now present At The Movies, which is the same show in all but name).
  • Mr. Dressup (Canadian children's show, 1967-96)
  • Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom (1963-88 [original series], 2002-present [revival])
  • Naruto (1999-present): The franchise began with the manga focused on the titular character, which was serialized from 1999 to 2014 at 700 chapters, and an anime adaptation that aired from 2002 to 2017. In total, there are 72 volumes, 720 episodes, twelve OVAs, eleven movies, numerous games, nineteen novels, two comedy spin-offs, and a miniseries. The final movie focusing on Naruto was released in December 2014, followed by a Spin-Offspring movie in 2015. It was in turn followed by a sequel manga that started publication in March 2016 and an anime adaptation that started broadcasting in April 2017, both of which are ongoing.
  • Nestor Burma (1991-2003)
  • NCIS (2003-present): The series celebrated its 20th anniversary in September 2023. It ran for so long it even outlived two of its spin-offs and the parent show it spun off from.
  • Nick News with Linda Ellerbee (1992-2015)
  • Ninja Warrior airs one or two new tournament every year since 1997.
  • Nintama Rantarou (1993-present) - The second longest-running anime of all time, behind only Sazae-san.
  • Nobody Here was first launched in 1998, and continues to receive updates to this day.
  • Notari Matsutarou (1973-1998)
  • Okashina Keiji, also known as Odd Detective in English (Japanese mystery crime series starring Shirō Itō and Michiko Hada, is still ongoing since August 2003, with the most recent episode having aired in December 2022)
  • Off Beat Cinema (1993-present)
  • Oggy and the Cockroaches (1998-2019 for the original series, not counting New Generation on Netflix)
  • Oha Suta (Japanese children's morning show, has aired every weekday since 1997)
  • Ojarumaru (1998-present) - The third longest-running anime of all time.
  • One Piece (started publication in 1997, has 1050+ manga chapters in 100+ volumes, 1000+ episodes, fifteen movies as of august 8 2022, and counting.)
  • The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986-2011)
  • The O'Reilly Factor (1996-2017)
  • Peppa Pig (2004-present)
  • The Phil Donahue Show (1967-96 on national TV, 3 years on Dayton, Ohio local TV) The show that inspired most Talk Shows after it, including Oprah and Sally Jessy Raphael.
  • Play School (BBC children's show, 1964-88)
  • Poirot (first episode shown in 1989, an occasional break in the 1990s and 2000s and a final episode in 2013)
  • Pokémon (1996-present; Multimedia franchise centered on a video game series with 38 mainline entries to date note ; as well as a trading card game since 1996, an ongoing manga series since 1997 with 60+ volumes, and an ongoing anime series since 1997 with 1200+ episodes)
  • The Polka Dot Door (Canadian children's show, 1971-93)
  • Prestonand Steve (Morning Radio Show in Philadelphia, broadcast since 1998)
  • Pretty Cure (airing weekly since 2004, as well as the Manga (starts 2 months later) which releases monthly on Nakayoshi Magazine) - reached its 20th anniversary with Soaring Sky! Precure.
  • Pumpkin Scissors (2002-present)
  • Queen for a Day (Game Show, 1945-64 and 1969-70; 20 years)
  • Rage (Music Video show, on Australian TV since 1987)
  • Rainbow (British children's series on Thames TV, 1972-92)
  • Reading Rainbow (1983-2006; 16 seasons over 26 years, appears to have been Killed Off for Real in 2009, but was resurrected as an Internet Outreach project in the form of an iPad app in 2012, and 2015 saw a burst of new content. The third longest-running kids show on PBS behind Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Sesame Street)
  • Real Time with Bill Maher (2003-)
  • The Real World (1992-, over 400 episodes, one of the first successful Reality TV shows and MTV's longest running show.)
  • The Red Skelton Show (1951-71)
  • Regional Contact (CTV Ottawa local newsmagazine, Sunday evenings since 1988)
  • Rick Steves' Europe (Travelogue Show that has been on the air since 2000).
  • Saint Seiya (original manga ran from 1986 to 1990; it's been followed by a sequel that began in 2006, and has numerous other spinoffs)
  • Samson En Gert, has been running since 1989.
  • The Secret Storm (squeaks in at 20 years and 7 days, 1954-74)
  • Love Pistols (Started in 2004, still running in 2024)
  • Sgt. Frog (1999-present)
  • Shadowrun (FASA's premier RPG survived the downfall of its parent company and just celebrated its 20th Anniversary)
  • Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō (1993- ongoing) - started in 1988 as a segment in the Kodomo Challenge direct-to-video cassettes, and in 1993 broke out into its own show. Faced a retool in 2008, another in 2010, and the latest retool in 2013. Benesse officially celebrated Shimajiro's 30th anniversary in 2018. But even if you don't count the Kodomo Challenge segments, it's still a relative long runner at 28 years as of 2021 and counting.
  • Shōnen Onmyōji (2001-present)
  • Shortland Street is Television New Zealand's longest-running soap opera, first aired on May 25, 1992 and still going strong.
  • Silent Witness (1996-, 26 seasons as of 2023, the oldest currently active crime show in the English language)
  • Simpsons Comics: Bongo Comics' longest running comic book series (November 1993 to October 2018, with 245 issues.)
  • Skip Beat! began publication in the magazine Hana to Yume in February of 2002 and chapters are still being published monthly.
  • Slayers: Began in 1989 in Dragon Magazine as a serialized novel series; had an anime run (1995-97); had two OVAs and five movies (1995-2001); anime was Un-Cancelled in 2008 and released two more seasons. The bulk of the long run was through the novels, which kept running through the new millennium and are still being made.
  • South Park (1997-present): The show surpassed Rugrats as the longest running ViacomCBS owned animated series with season 14. Show creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have stated that the show would continue for as long as Comedy Central lets them make it.
  • SpongeBob SquarePants (1999 - present): Widely considered to be the most popular cartoon of the Turn of the Millennium and rightfully took its place as one of the most successful cartoons of all time. Despite this, Stephen Hillenburg intended the first movie to be the series finale. However, Nickelodeon didn't want to let go of their biggest money maker and continued to renew the show for more episodes after the creator's departure. Hillenburg would briefly return years later before dying of ALS, with the show still chugging along afterward. It's the second longest running animated western children's show behind Arthur, the second longest running ViacomCBS-owned animated series behind the above mentioned South Park, the longest running Nicktoon and one of the 5 longest running western animated shows.
  • STOMP! starring the Yes/No group has been at the Orpheum Theater in New York City since the mid-90's - and it's still there.
  • Survivor has been on the air since 2000.
  • Suspense (CBS Radio series, 940+ episodes from 1942-62)
  • Świat według Kiepskich, a Polish sitcom running from 1999 to 2022, stopping only after most of the main cast passed away.
  • Taggart (20+ years, 1985 note  –2010, longest running cop show on UK TV at the moment)
  • Talk Soup ran from 1991-2002. Its successor, plainly titled The Soup, aired from 2004-15.
  • The Tamagotchi franchise of virtual pet toys began in 1996 and has been going since.
  • This American Life has aired nationally since 1996 (beginning locally one year earlier as Your Radio Playhouse), as well as a Showtime TV series from 2007-09.
  • This Hour Has 22 Minutes (1993-present)
  • Thuis (Belgian soap opera, since 1995)
  • Time Shock (Japanese quiz show, aired weekly 1969-1986, 1989-1990, and Time Shock 21 in 2000-2002, plus periodic specials 2002-present)
  • The original Tom and Jerry series ran from 1940-1967. If one counts the various spin-offs and movies that are still being produced to this day, then it's been going for more than 80 years.
  • The Powerpuff Girls: Currently has three installments: the original (1998-2005, 78 episodes and 6 seasons), Powerpuff Girls Z (2006-2007, 52 episodes and 1 season), and the 2016 reboot (2016-2019, 105 episodes and 3 seasons). Overall, there are currently 235 episodes and 10 seasons. It has also 10 shorts, 4 specials, and 2 movies. Although the shows aired on US television for 12 years (14 if one counts Powerpuff Girls Z which was aired outside the United States), the franchise is actually 20 years old since it was introduced on November 18, 1998.
  • The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992-2009, 2010-14)
  • The Tourettes Guy (The videos appeared as early as 2000, series celebrated its 20th anniversary on December 25, 2020)
  • To Tell the Truth (1956-68, 1969-78, 1980-81, 1990-91, 2000-01; total of 24 seasons)
  • Tournament of Kings, a Las Vegas dinner theater rival to the Medieval Times chain, opened with the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in 1990 as King Arthur's Tournament; it was retooled and renamed in 1998 and continues to run today.
  • Truth or Consequences (1950-51, 1954-75, 1977-78, 1987-88; total of 24 seasons, although it is best known for the 19 years {1956-75} hosted by Bob Barker)
  • Un, dos, tres, weekly Spanish game show that aired ten seasons intermittently between 1972 and 2004. Not counting skips between seasons, it stayed on air for about 20 years.
  • VeggieTales (1993-present, took a brief four-year hiatus beginning in 2015 due to Dreamworks Animation purchasing the series, and was continued in 2019 as The VeggieTales Show)
  • The Venture Bros. (2003-2023note , [adult swim]'s longest-running original series)
  • The View (1997-present)
  • Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me (1998-present)
  • Waratte Iitomo!, a live-broadcast Japanese variety show, has been on the air since October, 1982. There has only been one host throughout its entire run, who holds a Guinness world record for longest continued hosting of a live television program.
  • Watch Mr. Wizard (21 years; 1951-1965, 1971-1972, and 1983-1989)
  • WCW Saturday Night managed 29 years (23 of them nationally televised), with a couple of name changes along the way.
  • What's My Line? (24 years; 1950-67, then 1968-75)
  • Witchblade (1995-2015, then 2017-20)
  • World of Sport (23 years; 1965–88 on ITV)
  • Whose Line Is It Anyway? started out on BBC Radio 4 in 1988, then moved onto Channel 4 the same year, where it lasted for 10 seasons; the show moved to Hollywood in 1998, when it got picked up by ABC. The show was cancelled in 2003 — and by cancelled, we mean it stopped filming new episodes; new episodes continued to air on ABC Family until December 2007. Several years later, the series was uncanceled and made a Channel Hop to The CW, where new episodes began airing in 2013. This makes for over 20 years' worth of Whose Line (and counting).
  • WWE SmackDown has been airing regularly since April 29, 1999.
  • The X-Men Film Series (2000-2020) is the longest-running superhero movie franchise. Hugh Jackman appears as Wolverine in 10 of the 13 entries,note  making him the actor who has played the same superhero in the most movies.
  • Yotsuba&! (2003-present)
  • Your Hit Parade (24 years; 1935-53 on radio, 1950-59 on television)
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! got its start as a manga by Kazuki Takahashi in 1996. In addition to the original manga, the franchise has developed into five other manga series, seven anime series, one 30-minute animated movie, and three full-length animated movies. (The Collectible Card Game that most of the franchise was based on didn't actually debut until 1999; the anime series that most fans are familiar with was sponsored by Konami, revolving around their version of the card game to ensure their domination of the card game license.)
  • Zrób to sam (Do It Yourself) was a Polish weekly TV series about tinkering and providing useful objects, basic home appliances, and toys with the use of minimal resources or even scraps - a very useful ability in the People's Republic of Poland. It ran for 24 years, between 1959 and 1983, totaling 505 episodes. It even got a Spin-Off of sorts, in the form of Pomysłowy Dobromir.

    At least 30 years 
  • XIII (read "13"), comic book series that started in 1984. Still going (it has outlived one of its creators), plus has a spinoff series titled XIII Mystery. Also had a short-lived live action series adaptation and a video game
  • Amai Seikatsu, a manga and its sequel (Amai Seikatsu 2nd Season) that has been running since 1990 with a break of a few months between the two series in 2011.
  • American Bandstand (30 years on ABC, five years locally in Philadelphia, one year in syndication, one year on USA Network; 37 total)
  • The American Experience (1988-present)
  • America's Funniest Home Videos (original pilot aired in November 1989, from there January 1990-present. From 1999-2000, it ran only as occasional specials, but the Tom Bergeron-hosted revamp returned it to series status)
  • Another World (35 years, 1964-99; 8,891 episodes)
  • Arthur (The cartoon is already mentioned in the at least 20 years section, the books series ran for 34 years, 1976-2010)
  • Australia's Funniest Home Videos (the Australian version of America's Funniest Home Videos) has been running since 1990.
  • Bassie & Adriaan (since 1978)
  • Battle Angel Alita: The manga has been ongoing since 1990.
  • BattleTech (since 1984, with several ownership changes. Spawned a long running video game series, and an expanded universe since 1986)
  • The Bold and the Beautiful (1987-present, 8000+ episodes)
  • Car Talk began on WBUR Boston in 1977, and was picked up nationally by NPR in 1987. New episodes stopped being produced in 2012 and the older of the two brothers who co-hosted the show, Tom Magliozzi, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease in 2014, but Tom and his brother Ray still had recorded enough material for them to continue broadcasting new shows of never-before-aired material for at least a few more years. In late 2017 NPR announced, through a recording made by Ray, that they would officially cease its syndication to make way for new programming.
  • A Case for Two: started in 1981, ended in 2013, with some more occasional TV movies until 2019.
  • Detective Conan
    • Case Closed, in publication since 1994 and on the air since 1996 with 1000 episodes, 23 movies, and 100 volumes. It's still going in both anime and manga form.
  • CASUAL+Y (30 years, first broadcast 1986) Its spinoff Holby City has also had a 20+ year run in its own right (1999-2022).
  • The Chibi Maruko-chan franchise has been running for over 30 years; the manga was published from 1986 to 2018, and the second anime adaptation began in 1995 and is still airing, with well over a thousand episodes.
  • COPS (1989–present, second longest-running show on Fox and the longest-running Reality Show, currently on Spike TV, was canceled twice only to return later on)
  • CookingPapa is a manga about a stoic salaryman who is highly skilled at cooking. It has been running since 1985.
  • The first Dark Tower book was released in 1982. An Interquel taking place between books four and five was released in 2012.
  • The Degrassi television series, which has been running in some form since 1979.
  • Den Ace (1989-present), a series of Tokusatsu shorts parodying Ultraman.
  • Discworld; first released in 1983, it went on to span 41 books before the author's death in 2015, as well as numerous short stories, reference books, stage shows, tv adaptations and various different types of games. Even after suffering from Alzheimer's disease, Sir Terry Pratchett managed to release a new book almost every year.
  • Don McNeill's Breakfast Club aired on NBC Blue (later ABC Radio) from 1933-68.
  • EastEnders (3,300+ episodes since 1985)
  • Entertainment Tonight started in 1981 and is still in production.
  • Evening at Pops (PBS Boston Pops concert program, aired 1970-2005)
  • Family Feud (airing since 1976 on ABC {1976-85}, CBS {1988-94}, NBC {2008 specials}, and syndication {1977-85, 1988-95, 1999-})
  • Firing Line (public-affairs program, aired in syndication 1966-71 and then on PBS 1971-99; 1,504 episodes over 33 years)
  • The Five Star Stories (1986-present)
  • Fort Boyard (1990-) French summer TV Game Show.
  • From Eroica with Love (1976-2012, though it went on hiatus from 1989 to 1995)
  • Front Page Challenge (Canadian celebrity panel quiz show that ran from 1957-95)
  • Fujimi Orchestra (1994-present; over 50 volumes published)
  • The Games Machine (1988-present), an Italian video game magazine, is the longest-running PC gaming magazine being continuously published, and also the second-longest-running video game magazine in the world after the Japanese Famitsu. Ironically, it started its life as a direct translation of a British magazine of the same name, which however folded after just two years and was soon forgotten.
  • Gardening Australia (1990-present a gardening programme on ABC)
  • FurryMUCK (1990-present) May be the oldest text-based virtual reality game still around.
  • George and Lynne, 36 years (1976-2010).
  • Ginga Franchise, which includes Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin and Ginga Densetsu Weed with their sequels, has been going on since 1983. The last Ginga series ended in 2022, so there's about 147 volumes in the main series so far. In addition, the series has a lot of side stories and one spin-off, not to mention a huge amount of merchandise. Both Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin and Ginga Densetsu Weed are the only ones which got the anime adaptations (in 1986 and 2005-2006), so there hasn't been a new Ginga anime for about 20 years, while there was only about a 10-year hiatus after the original manga series before the start of the sequel. However, the series is still very popular in the Nordic countries, especially in Finland. The original series was also made into two Stage Plays in 2019 and 2020.
  • Gold Digger (American comic book, 1991-2023) With 301 issues of the main run plus numerous miniseries and specials, also the longest running comic by a single creator by issue count.
  • Grange Hill (BBC children's drama, 1978-2008)
  • Les Guignols de l'Info (French satirical puppet show, 1988-2018, put to rest three months after its 30th anniversary)
  • Guyver: The manga is still in production after starting in 1986, although it has considerably slowed since Yoshiki Takaya doesn't use assistants, and hasn't had a new chapter since 2016.
  • Hajime no Ippo (manga serialization started in 1989, has since topped 1,000 chapters and going strong)
  • Here's Humphrey (Australian children's show, 1966-2003, briefly revived in 2007)
  • Herman Hedning (1988-Present)
  • Home and Away (Australian soap opera running since 1988, 7,800+ Episodes)
  • Hong Kong Connection and Sunday Report are similar social commentary/documentary shows from Hong Kong that both coincidentally started in 1987, with the former being older by merely 5 days.
  • The Howard Stern Show (some incarnation of the show has existed since the late 1970s)
  • How Green Was My Cactus (Australia's longest running radio serial, airing since 1986)
  • Hungarian Folk Tales (1977-2011)
  • Inside Edition (1989-present)
  • The Jack Benny Program (33 years on radio and television, 1932-65)
  • Jackanory (1965-96, brief relaunch in 2007)
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (started on January 1st in 1987 on Weekly Jump; it switched to Ultra Jump (a monthly publication) in 2004, and has published over 100 volumes spanning eight major story arcs; the eighth arc "Jojolion" is a long-runner itself, with a more than ten-year run from March 2011 to August 2021)
  • Jubilee! — The last traditional showgirl revue in Las Vegas to close ran from 1981 to 2016.
  • 3-Nen B-Gumi Kinpachi-sensei (Japanese school drama; ran from 1979-2011)
  • Karura Mau! (manga serialization started in 1986, keeps going)
  • The Kindaichi Case Files (1992-present)
  • Kirby (1992-present)
  • Kocchimuite! Miiko (1989-present, originally serialized in Pyon Pyon magazine under the name Miiko Desu!, before the magazine got discontinued in 1992 and serialization moved to Ciao magazine. The series went under name change in 1995).
  • Kodomo Challenge: A Japanese direct-to-video learning program by Benesse with a segment starring a character named Shimajiro that has been running since 1988. Shimajiro was spun off into its own anime, Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirō, that has been running nonstop since 1993.
  • Last of the Summer Wine (British TV Sitcom, the world's longest-running): 31 series (1973, 1975-1977, 1979, 1982-1983, 1985, 1987-1993, 1995, 1997-2010) over 37 1/2 years.
  • Late Night with... (1982- on NBC; hosted by David Letterman {1982-93}, Conan O'Brien {1993-2009}, Jimmy Fallon {2009-2014}, and Seth Meyers {2014-})
  • The Lawrence Welk Show (Locally on KTLA in Los Angeles 1955-1971, then nationally on ABC 1955-1971 and in syndication 1971-1982; reruns still air on some PBS stations)
  • The Legend of Zelda released in 1986 and still makes games to this day.
  • Legends in Concert, a celebrity impersonator revue, has been performing somewhere in Las Vegas, NV since 1983. Sister productions in Atlantic City, NJ, Branson, MO, and Myrtle Beach, SC have all had decade-plus runs; the latter two are still performing.
  • Lista Przebojów Programu Trzeciego is a Chartlist of the Channel Three of the Polish National Radio, running continuously since 1982 each Friday and being hosted by the same person, Marek Niedźwiecki, for most of that time. The program isn't just a simple chartlist, but it's spliced with interviews, guests in the studio, transmissions from live events and so on, making it further unique in Polish radio, be it national or commercial. In an aura of a politically-flavoured turmoil, the List's last program was aired on 15th of May, 2020 and Niedźwiedzki resigned from his job. The final chart (but without the broadcast itself) was published a week later, on 22nd of May, ending at 1999th listing, after over 38 years of continuous broadcasting and week from planned and already prepared celebrations of the 2000th listing milestone.
  • The Kevin and Bean Show on Los Angeles-based rock station KROQ aired from 1990 to 2020.
  • Look and Read (produced irregularly from 1967-2004)
  • The original theatrical Looney Tunes series ran from 1930-69. In that period of time, it went through various directors, animators, producers, and characters and that's not counting the various spinoffs, revivals, and movies.
  • Lou Dobbs Tonight, originally titled Moneyline (aired on CNN from 1980-2009, and on Fox Business Network since 2011)
  • Maalaala Mo Kaya (Airs on ABS-CBN since 1991. World's longest-running drama anthology as well as in Philippine television, having aired on the said TV network for over 30 years)

  • Bandai's Machine Robo toy line has been around semi-consistently since 1982 via revivals.
  • Magic Kaito (1987-present, though the manga has an irregular publishing schedule and new chapters are only drawn occasionally as the creator works more regularly on his other long-running manga)
  • Magic: The Gathering (1993-present; the original Collectible Card Game)
  • The McLaughlin Group (current affairs debate program, originally on PBS from 1982 until host John McLaughlin's death in 2016; revived in 2018 on a local D.C. station, with plans to syndicate nationally)
  • Metroid: First game was released in August 1986, with at least one new game coming out every console generation (sans a dry spell in the late 90s), plus some comics and manga.
  • Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968-2001, although reruns still air)
  • MotorWeek (airing on PBS since October 15, 1981)
  • Mr. Squiggle (Australian children's show, 1959-95)
  • Mugen Shinshi (1981-2007)
  • My Little Pony has been running toys and shows consistently since its debut in 1982 in some country or other—most consistently in Europe, if not its country of origin.
  • Sanrio's My Melody debuted in 1975. She would become one of Sanrio's very beloved characters in the company.
  • My Word! (1956-1988, BBC radio Panel Game)
  • Nature (PBS wildlife program, airing since 1982)
  • Neighbours (Australian soap opera which ran from 1985-2022, with over 8,900 episodes)
  • Omnibus (BBC documentary series, 1967-2003)
  • The Original Amateur Hour, originally titled Major Bowes Amateur Hour (variety/talent show aired on radio from 1934-45 and again from 1948-52, as well as on television from 1948-70, changing networks several times across both media)
  • Ouke no Monshou (Shoujo manga by Chieko Hosokawa, has been running since 1976 just like Glass Mask. Had a short video drama as well.)
  • Parkinson (British chat show hosted by Michael Parkinson, aired on The BBC from 1971-82 and then again in 1987-88 and 1998-2004, then on ITV from 2004-07)
  • The off-Broadway play Perfect Crime has been running nonstop since 1987, making it the longest-running play in New York City history. Even more remarkably, actress Catherine Russell has been playing the lead for the show's entire run, having missed only four performances total in 36 years.
  • The "Pete Smith Specialties" series of short subjects for MGM, 1930s-1950s
  • A Prairie Home Companion (radio variety show, running from 1974–2016 with two very similar shows running during the breaks from 1987-89 and 1989-92. Garrison Keillor hosted this show, but not the very similar ones that ran during its breaks. The successor show, Live from Here, picked up where it left off in 2016, but ended in June 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.)
  • The London production of The Phantom of the Opera has been running since 1986; the Broadway staging ran from 1988 until closing on April 16, 2023.
  • Power Rangers (over 900 episodes since 1993)
  • Predator (7 films and dozens of print and video game spin-offs, 1987-present)
  • Question Time (British current affairs debate program, running since 1979)
  • Questions pour un champion (French version of Going for Gold, running since 1988)
  • Quirks and Quarks (general-interest science program on CBC Radio since 1975)
  • Record Breakers A TV series based on and approved by the Guinness Book Of Records, broadcast by the BBC between 1972 and 2001.
  • Royal Canadian Air Farce (since 1973 on radio, since 1993 on TV; ended with a New Year's Eve special on December 31, 2008)
  • Rugrats (1991-present): The original cartoon ended in 2004 with 172 episodes, twelve video games, and five movies under its belt. It also spawned a direct-to-video series and two spinoffs, one of which ran from 2003 to 2008. A reboot premiered in 2021.
  • Schoolhouse Rock! (1973-2009)
  • Search for Tomorrow (35 years and 9,130 episodes, 1951-86)
  • The Simpsons has been on the air as a series since December 17, 1989 note , though the title characters originated in animated shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show back in 1987. Is on track to debut its 800th episode during its 36th season. It's also had a theatrical film, several video games, and nine comic book series. It currently holds the record for the longest-running scripted prime time television series of all time (in both seasons and number of episodes), having surpassed Gunsmoke in 2018.
  • Soul Train (1971-2006)
  • Street Fighter: The first game debuted in 1987, the more popular sequel, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, was released in arcades in 1991.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog: (1991-present)
  • Sunday Night Baseball (on ESPN since 1990)
  • Sunday Night Football (on ESPN 1987-2005, NBC 2006-present. TNT split the coverage with ESPN from 1990-97.)
  • Super Mario Bros., whose first game was released in 1985 (1981, if one counts previous games where Mario has also been a protagonist), still has games in development every year. Since then, Mario has starred in over 200 games.
  • Sylvanian Families: Debuted in stores in 1985, and despite some controversies (ie disappearance from US shelves for a short stint followed by a name change in the US circa 1993, and another disappearance for a short stint, this time in the UK, in 2009) and numerous revamps, is still going strong.
  • Terminator (6 films, 1 two-season television series, and a bunch of spin-off media, 1984-2019)
  • Thomas & Friends (1984-2020; a TV Show based off The Railway Series, ran for thirty-six years, including American Importation Expansion Shining Time Station which ran from 1989-1993 and the Jack & the Sodor Construction Company mini-series, if you were to include the Continuity Reboot Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go, Thomas has been running in one form or another since 1984)
  • Tomorrow's World - Thirty-eight years (1965 - 2003)
  • The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962-1992)
  • Top Gear (UK) (1977-2001, 2002-; if you include Wheelbase, Top Gear has been running in one form or another since 1964.)
  • Transformers has been present in some form, either TV or comics, pretty much continuously since September 1984.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (A comic book that started in 1984 has spawned four animated TV series, multiple films, two other comicbook universes, and several video games).
  • This Old House, a PBS series which premiered in 1979 and has been running since.
  • The Thistle & Shamrock (NPR Celtic-music program, airing since 1981)
  • TV Patrol, a longest-running Tagalog newscast in the Philippines aired on ABS-CBN from March 2, 1987 to present.
  • The comic Urbanus, since 1982.
  • Nature (1982-)
  • Wall Street Week (PBS economics program, 1972-2005)
  • The Walt Disney anthology series, which aired continuously under various titles from 1954-83 and has been revived several times since.
  • Warhammer, the game of fantasy battles, actually appeared before its More Famous Spin Off, in 1983.
    • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a long runner in its own right, spanning four editions and receiving over a hundred supplements, with its run spanning past the discontinuation of its source material and into the present day via Alternate Continuity. The first edition is also its own long runner, receiving over thirty supplements from 1986 to 2002. It'd have gone even longer had the company not sold the rights back to Games Workshop, leading to the second edition in 2005, the third in 2009, and the fourth in 2018.
  • Warhammer 40,000, the first game Rogue Trader, was released in 1986. Nine editions, countless supplements, dozens of video games, and hundreds of novels later...
  • Wetten, dass...? (German language show, broadcast in Germany, Austria and Switzerland from 1981-2014)
  • What? Where? When? (the original Russian version of Million Dollar Mind Game, 1975-)
  • Wide World Of Sports (1961-98)
  • Wonderama (1955-1986), a weekly children's show that ran on New York's WNEW and other stations owned by the Metromedia syndicate.
  • The Woodwright's Shop (1979-), an American woodworking show on PBS produced through University of North Carolina Public Television.
  • Woody Woodpecker made his first appearance in 1940 (although he wouldn't get his own series until the next year) and his theatrical cartoons lasted all the way up to 1972 (and are still being re-run on television in some parts of South America). He also had a brief revival in the late 1990s.
  • WWE Raw has been airing since 1993 and has celebrated its 30th anniversary.
  • Yan Can Cook has been on PBS since 1982.
  • You've Been Framed, British home video series, first broadcast in 1989.

    At least 40 years 
  • 20/20 (airing on ABC since 1978)
  • Adventures in Good Music, a daily classical music program that debuted on Detroit station WJR in 1959, was picked up for national syndication in 1970 and ran until 2007.
  • Alien (8 films and too many print and video game spin-offs to count, 1979-present)
  • All My Children (10,712 episodes from 1970-2011)
  • Antiques Roadshow (started in 1977 and is still ongoing)
  • Austin City Limits (PBS live music series, airing since 1976)
  • Big News, a longest-running newscast in both languages in the Philippines, aired on ABC-5 (now 5) from March 19, 1962 (except during Ferdinand Marcos-ruled military dictatorship from 1972 to 1986 and then Corazon Aquino's presidency from 1986 to February 1992) until August 8, 2008 before ABC-5's rebrand into TV5 on August 9, 2008.
  • The Bozo Show (later known as The Bozo Super Weekend Show) (1961-2001)
  • The Bugs Bunny Show (1960-2000): With a 40-year run, it remains the longest-running American cartoon to air on television to date.
  • Countdown (Britain; the first programme on Channel 4, started in 1982, with 5,000+ episodes)
  • Dragon Ball: 1984-present. The manga started in late 1984 and ended in 1995, concluding with 42 volumes and 519 chapters. Three anime series totaling 508 half-hour episodes were broadcast between 1986 and 1997, the first two adapting the manga. Dragon Ball Z Kai, a re-edit of the second anime, was broadcast between 2009 to 2015. Twenty Non Serial Movies aired during this same period. After a hiatus in which the only new material was video games, guidebooks, and the Kai reedit, the series had a revival with the release of the theatrical canon film Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods in 2013 (with a script mostly written by the author of the original manga), a revival that has continued to the present. Another film, Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F', followed in 2015. The same year a serialized continuation of the manga co-written by the original author, Dragon Ball Super, started up and soon after was running alongside a fourth anime series based on the same story, Dragon Ball Super which began airing in June 2015 and ended in March 2018 with 131 episodes. The movies and manga continued to come after the TV series ended, with the Super manga continuing on schedule to the present, Dragon Ball Super: Broly being released at the end of 2018, and an announcement for another unnamed movie to be released in 2021. There are also a number of TV specials and OVAs. Official Spin Offs like Jaco the Galactic Patrolman may also be included.
  • Dungeons & Dragons has been around since 1974 with five editions and literally hundreds of tabletop books, plus its own expanded multiverse of hundreds of novels and dozens of video games of variable notability.
  • Eat Bulaga!, a Philippine noontime variety show running since 1979.
  • En Familia con Chabelo (In Family With Chabelo) is a Mexican game/variety show starring Xavier Lopez "Chabelo" that ran almost every Sunday since 1968. After 47 years, the show ended its run on December 20, 2015.
  • Europa-Park, German theme park (opened in 1975).
  • Extra 3 started in 1976 on the NDR. It was transferred into a mainstream slot on the ARD only 39 years later.
  • The Fifth Estate (CBC-TV newsmagazine program since 1975)
  • Folies Bergere, one of the original Las Vegas showgirl extravaganzas, opened in 1959 at the Tropicana Hotel and Casino and closed a few months shy of what would have been its 50th anniversary in 2009.
  • Fresh Air (interview show, locally on WHYY Philadelphia since 1975, nationally on NPR since 1987)
  • Garfield (a newspaper comic strip, 1978-present)
  • Glass Mask (the manga has been running since 1976. Has had several anime adaptations, the oldest ran during 1984 and the newest in 2005. And we're not counting the dorama, the Noh play, etc.)
  • Golden Raspberry Awards (started in 1981 and is still ongoing)
  • The Goldbergs: From radio through television for 27 years, but a musical in 1974 based on the characters stretch it to 45 years.
  • Good Morning America (ABC weekday morning show, airing since 1975)
  • Great Performances (PBS performing arts series, airing since 1972)
  • Gundam (since its debut on April 7, 1979, 16 TV and OAV series, 11+ movies, more manga and video games {separate and original stories, not just adaptations} than we dare to count, and good Lord, the model kits! If one were to watch every Gundam animated work continuously, not counting eating, sleeping, or bathroom breaks, the total runtime would last more than one week.)
  • Hearts of Space (weekly New Age music program on public radio, has aired on Berkeley station KPFA since 1973 and in national syndication since 1983)
  • The House (CBC Radio parliamentary affairs show, year-round since October 1977)
  • I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue has been running on BBC Radio 4 since April 1972. Humphrey Lyttelton was the 'chairman' from the beginning (barring a few episodes in the first series where Barry Cryer was chair; Lyttelton was the first and only choice for host but for various reasons he couldn't make every recording) up until his death in 2008. Of the regular panel of Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Willie Rushton which was quickly established within the first two years, Brooke-Taylor was the last to still be regularly appearing on the show when he passed away in April 2020 (Rushton had died in 1996, and health issues had reduced Cryer and Garden to occasional appearances by the late 2010s). Apart from the format of the show itself, the only other element remaining from the "classic" lineup is pianist Colin Sell, who didn't make his debut until 1975.
  • Inside The NFL (1977-2008 on HBO, 2008-2021 on Showtime, 2021-2023 on Paramount+, 2023- on The CW)
  • The character Kiki & Lala from Sanrio's Little Twin Stars has been around since 1974.
  • Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kôen Mae Hashutsujo (called Kochikame for short, and for good reason): Was the longest continuously-running manga series in terms of number of volumes, though Golgo 13 beats it in years. Started in 1976, it accumulated a total of 1960 chapters in 200 tankobon volumes (plus a few uncollected one-shots and crossovers), before ending its run on its 40th anniversary in 2016. The anime adaptation, which aired from 1996 to 2004, lasted 373 episodes plus 2 theatrical movies and 10 TV specials (including a 40th anniversary special aired in 2016).
  • Live from Lincoln Center (PBS performing arts series, airing since 1976)
  • The talk show now known as Live with Kelly and Mark has a continuous history dating back to at least 1983:
    • The Morning Show (1983–1988), initially a local show on WABC-TV in New York City, hosted by Regis Philbin and Cyndy Garvey. That show is the successor to local talk shows in both New York and Los Angeles that date back to 1970 (in NYC) and 1971 (in L.A.), with the L.A. show hosted by Philbin and Garvey for several years. Garvey left in 1984, and after a year with Ann Abernathy in the co-host chair, Kathie Lee Gifford (then Johnson) debuted in 1985. The show went national in 1988 as...
    • Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee (1988–2000). After Gifford left in 2000, then there was...
    • Live! with Regis (2000–2001), when the producers tried out several prospective co-hosts. The hiring of Kelly Ripa brought us to...
    • Live! with Regis and Kelly (2001–2011). Philbin left in early 2011, leading to...
    • Live! with Kelly (2011–2012), with Ripa joined by a revolving cast of guest co-hosts. Eventually, producers settled on former NFL player Michael Strahan, creating...
    • Live with Kelly and Michael (2012–2016).note  Strahan left in the spring of 2016 to become co-host of ABC's Good Morning America, leading to the return of...
    • Live with Kelly (2016–2017), with Ripa again joined by a revolving cast of guest co-hosts. Producers then settled on former American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, creating...
    • Live with Kelly and Ryan (2017–2023). Seacrest announced in February 2023 that he would be stepping down as co-host primarily for travel reasons. Ripa's real-life husband Mark Consuelos was brought on as the new co-host, leading to...
    • Live with Kelly and Mark (2023-)
  • The Magic Roundabout: The original French version has been running since 1964.
  • Marketplace (consumer advocacy program on CBC-TV since October 1972)
  • Masterpiece Mystery (originally known as Mystery!), a sister program to the even longer-running Masterpiece (see the "50 years" folder), has aired on PBS since 1980.
  • Max and Ruby (Although the television series is also mentioned in the "At least 10 years" section, Rosemary Wells has been making books starring the characters since 1979)
  • Mazinger Z: Manga came around in October 1972. An anime show and a second, manga series parallel to the original one were made in that same year, two sequels and several movies in that same decade, a related anime show (God Mazinger) in the eighties, an OVA series and movie in 2001 and a reboot in 2009. And then you have to count several alternate manga versions and one-shots produced throughout four decades. And this year the creator has stated he intends to make more Mazinger manga and anime.
  • Morning Edition (airing on NPR since 1979)
  • Mr. Squiggle, an Australian children's puppet show that ran from 1959 to 1999.
  • The Muscular Dystrophy Association's telethon, from 1966 to 2014, after which it was cancelled due to at least three major factors: 1) lack of viewership due to Jerry Lewis' departure, 2) the numerous format changes and scheduling issues that followed, and 3) the MDA's shift to digital media to find a cure for muscular dystrophy.
  • The News Quiz (satirical Panel Game running on BBC Radio Four since September 8, 1977)
  • Newsnight (broadcast on the same channel since 1980 if you don't count its predecessor)
  • NewsWatch, a second-longest running English newscast from the Philippines and aired on RPN-9 from June 1970 (except for a brief hiatus from 2000 to 2001 and again from 2007 to 2008) to October 29, 2012.
  • Nightline (ABC late-night news program, airing since November 8, 1979. Originally aired as The Iran Crisis–America Held Hostage; changed to current title in 1980)
  • Nova, a PBS TV Documentary series that has aired continuously since March 3, 1974.
  • One Life to Live (11,096 episodes from 1968-2012)
  • Ouke no Monshou (1976-present)
  • Panel Quiz Attack 25, a Japanese quiz show, 2280 episodes from 1975-2021. Hosted by Kiyoshi Kodama (1975-2011), Yasuyuki Urakawa (2011-2015), and Shosuke Tanihara (2015-2021)
  • Papyrus, a Franco-Belgian comic set in Ancient Egypt that started in 1974. It ended in 2013, after 36 albums.
  • Planet of the Apes (9 films and 2 one-season TV shows, 1968-2017)
  • Pobol y Cwm (Welsh-language Soap Opera, The BBC's longest-running television soap began in October 1974 and is still going)
  • Quote Unquote, that innocuous literary quiz that appears at lunchtimes, has been on BBC Radio 4 with the same host (Nigel Rees) since 1976.
  • Romper Room (41 years, 1953-94)
  • RuneQuest has been around since 1978.
  • Saturday Night Live (premiered October 11, 1975 and is still going with over 900 episodes and counting {and that's not even counting the "Best Of..." clip shows, anniversary/holiday episodes, or the "Saturday Night Live Stays at Home" episodes that were made due to the COVID-19 pandemic temporarily shutting down Studio 8H in 2020}, 45 completed seasons and is currently on its 46th seasonnote ).
  • The Scrameustache, is a science-fiction comedy Franco-Belgian comic that debuted in November 1972. It's still being made by the original author and his son has contributed to the series since 1982.
  • The original Sherlock Holmes canon consists of 60 stories over the course of 1887-1930.
  • Sports Center first aired on ESPN's first broadcast day on September 7, 1979. Today, it runs for at least two hours every day {the latter of which is repeated throughout the following morning}, and quite a bit more since August 2008. ESPN celebrated the show's 50,000th episode back in 2012; each episode usually runs 60 or 90 minutes.
  • Star Wars (11 films, 4 live-action shows totaling 5 seasons; 4 animated shows totaling 15 seasons, 4 canon video games;note  1977-present)
  • Star Wars Legends started up alongside the first film in 1977 and produced literally hundreds of interconnected books, video games, and comic series before it finally stopped receiving content. Despite being rendered Canon Discontinuity pretty much from the moment that Disney bought the franchise in 2012, Legends managed to drag its way into 2017 with one last trickle of video game content, comic issues, and short stories.
  • Strawberry Shortcake: Launched in 1979 by American Greetings (who also created Care Bears and The Get Along Gang), the franchise has gained a couple TV specials during the 1980s, five different incarnations, a direct-to-video/DVD series, and five TV shows.
  • Care Bears: Since its launch in 1981, is over forty years old if one doesn't count in the hiatuses the franchise took. Even if one did count in the hiatus, the one hiatus starting in 1993 through 2001 and another from 2008 through 2012 totaled 12 years, still leaving the franchise's "active" periods with a span of a little over 20 years.
  • Super Sentai (1975-77, 1979-current note ) Whether it counts depends on the definition of a "show", since the series are generally independent stories with a different team of superheroes (or "rangers") in color-coded uniforms who ride giant transforming and combining robots. It does, however, have a series of crossover films between different teams (the Super Sentai Versus Series) and the 35th series, Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger, was a year-long crossover involving all the previous teams. If you count it, it's the longest running sci-fi program in the world just by number of years on-air, and the fact that it airs an episode a week with no Summer break (more than 2000 episodes and counting) means it vastly exceeds most rivals' lengths in total airtime, including Doctor Who.
  • Tony Brown's Journal (PBS African-American public affairs program): debuted in 1968 as Black Journal; has aired under its current title since 1978.
  • Top of the Pops (UK chart music TV show): started in 1964; weekly show stopped in 2006, but lives on in special editions.
  • Traveller has been around since 1977.
  • The Victory Garden (PBS gardening program, airing since 1975)
  • Wheel of Fortune (1975-91 on daytime television {NBC from 1975-89, CBS from 1989-91, then a return to NBC in 1991}; 1983-present in nighttime syndication)
  • Yeralash (1975-2018), a Soviet/Russian comedy show for kids.

    At least 50 years 
  • 60 Minutes has aired weekly on CBS since September 1968.
  • The 700 Club: Religious program airing since April 1966 on local Portsmouth, Virginia station WYAH (now WGNT), in national syndication since 1974, and on CBN since 1977; well-known as one of two CBN / Family Channel shows remaining on FOX Family / ABC Family / Freeform (it, Living the Life, and the annual day-long CBN telethon were all stipulations when Pat Robertson sold the network in 1998). Robertson was host from its inception until his death in 2023.
  • All Night Nippon is a radio show that has been broadcast on Japan's Nippon Broadcasting System since October 1, 1967, and is probably most famous for giving out a Famicom Disk System version of Super Mario Bros.—wherein some sprites were replaced by imagery associated with the show's hosts and with NBS and its parent company—as a contest prize in 1986.
  • All Things Considered (news magazine program airing on NPR since May 3, 1971, airing its first installment just months after NPR itself began broadcasting.)
  • Anpanman: Made for a magazine in 1969, went to picture books from 1973 until 2013, then became big on the anime Soreike! Anpanman (1988-present), plus being the leader in the largest number of characters in any animated program.
  • As It Happens (current events and interviews program on CBC Radio since 1968)
  • Assignment: The World, a social studies instructional show presented as a News Broadcast, was produced by Rochester Area Educational Television Association (1959-1966) and its successor WXXI Rochester (1966-2013) and a favorite of PBS stations in the American Northeast.
  • As the World Turns (54 years, 1956-2010; 13,858 episodes)
  • In Mexico, a daily radio program playing The Beatles has run uninterrupted since February 1964; originally known as 7 minutes and 90 seconds on Mexico City's 790 AM, in later years it became The Beatles Hour, Beatlemania and is currently named ''The Beatles Club" airing on 88.1 FM.
  • Bound for Glory is a live folk music radio broadcast that has been presenting 33 concerts a year on Ithaca, NY station WVBR since September 1967.
  • Country Calendar is a New Zealand farming documentary series that has been running continuously since March 1966. Not only is it New Zealand's longest-running television series, it is only five years younger than New Zealand television itself.
  • Days of Our Lives has run on NBC since 1965; while its network run ended on September 9, 2022, new episodes are being produced for NBC's Peacock streaming service. Like Coronation Street (in the "60 years" folder), Days has recordings of all of its episodes; the entire run is available on Peacock. Because Days runs for an hour as opposed to Coronation Street's normal 20 or 30 minutes, it likely has the largest archive of any dramatic TV series in terms of airtime. (Given SportsCenter's multiple daily airings with differing content over a period of more than 40 years, it almost certainly has a larger archive these days.)
  • Doraemon started off as a manga that ran from 1969-1996. There's the first anime series that aired in 1973 then ended in the same year due to budget issues that eventually caused the animation studio to go bankrupt. There's second and more popular anime series that lasted from 1979 to 2005. Just a month later, a third anime series started airing in 2005 with all the characters redesigned and all the voice actors were replaced. And this is before mentioning the truly staggering amount of anime films produced virtually every year since 1980,note  which hold the record as the highest-grossing film series in Japan.
  • Emmerdale (formerly Emmerdale Farm), British soap opera (began in October 1972)
  • The Fantasticks ran off-Broadway from 1960-2002, and was revived in 2006 to run until 2017. The revival run had the number of New York performances posted in the lobby, over 21,500 as of May 2017.
  • Since 1965, Gamera has starred in 12 films and an anime series.
  • Gardeners' World has been broadcast on BBC television since 1968.
  • Sábado Gigante started in June 1962 (as Gran Show Dominical before moving from Sunday to Saturday in 1966), Channel Hopped from Chile's Canal 13 to Univision in 1986, and from there, ran all the way up until April 17, 2015. "Don Francisco" (Mario Kreutzberger) hosted the show for its entire run.
  • Golgo 13: 142 volumes spread across 50 years; started in 1969, plus two live-action movies, one animated movie, one OVA, a video game and a 50 episode anime. Still in production as of 2021.
  • Hello Kitty has been around since 1974.
  • The BBC pop-science program Horizon has been running since May 1964.
  • The Hot Wheels toy franchise started in May 1968 with the release of its first 16 toy cars (known as the "Sweet 16") and has been running since.
  • Ideas (anthology series on CBC Radio since 1965)
  • Jeopardy! (12 years with Art Fleming {1964-75 and 1978-79}, from 1984–2020 in syndication with Alex Trebek, and in syndication after Trebek's death with Mike Richards [briefly], Ken Jennings, and Mayim Bialik)
  • Just a Minute has been running since December 1967 on BBC Radio 4, where it now rotates seasons with I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue (see corresponding entry). The original chairman, Nicholas Parsons, either presented or appeared as a panellist on every episode but four from 1967-2019, only sitting out two recording sessions (for a total of four episodes) for health reasons near the end of his life. The Swedish version of the programme, På Minuten, has aired since 1969 (with a hiatus from 1988-94).
  • Kamen Rider: The TV series underwent four production eras (1971-1975, 1979-1981, 1987-1989, 2000-present), with a few movies and specials (such as Kamen Rider ZX and Kamen Rider J) produced during the off years. The 1,000th episode aired on April 3, 2011, which coincided with the 40th anniversary. 2021 celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the franchise, despite only having thirty-one seasons - still a lot, but still ten seasons behind five-years-younger sibling franchise Super Sentai.
  • Letter from America ran on BBC Radio from 1946-2004, ending when Alastair Cooke retired less than a month before his death.
  • Lupin III: The original weekly manga stories were published in Weekly Manga Action, starting in August of 1967; these were later collected into volumes. Later manga series were published directly to volume form. The first anime for Lupin was a pilot film, created in 1969. The first full TV serial began in 1971; five other series plus a spin-off series have since been released, the most recent in 2021 to celebrate the TV version's 50th anniversary. There have also been nine theatrical releases, including one fully 3D CG animated film, in addition to two live action films, one spin-off film, and two crossover moviesnote , as well as four OVA originally released to video/DVD. Since 1989, TMS Entertainment has also produced an annual TV movie sitting at 28 films total and only missing in the years that one of the TV series was under production. There was even a Takarazuka stage play. Whew. There has not been a year without at least one Lupin III production since 1978. It's easier if you just think of it as the Japanese Scooby-Doo.
  • Most of the Marvel Universe core characters are at least 50 years old, such as Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, The Hulk, Daredevil, The Avengers, the X-Men and many others, debuting between 1961 and 1965.
  • Mastermind (British quiz show airing since September 11, 1972; from 1972-97 on BBC1 with Magnús Magnússon, 1998-2000 on BBC Radio 4 with Peter Snow, 2001-02 on Discovery with Clive Anderson, and 2003-present on BBC2 with John Humphrys)
  • Masterpiece first aired on PBS as Masterpiece Theatre on January 10, 1971, and continues to this day.
  • Match of the Day (UK football highlights and discussion show): started in August 1964, survived in various forms even during periods when highlights rights have gone to other channels, and now has a Spin-Off series (Match of the Day 2, on air since the 2004-05 season) and magazine.
  • Monday Night Football first aired on September 21, 1970. It aired on ABC until 2005, and has since aired on ESPN.
  • Paul Harvey hosted News and Comment on ABC Radio from 1951 to 2008.
  • Ninja Hattori. The original manga series started in 1964, and the series became popular enough to become a franchise that continues to this day.
  • Oriental Heroes, a Chinese manhua that debuted in 1970.
  • Play School (Australian children's show, running since July 1966 and isn't going anywhere any time soon)
  • Question of Sport (known as A Question of Sport before 2021) kicked off with a pilot episode in 1968 and became a regular programme on 5 January 1970, making it the oldest Panel Game in existence and arguably the longest continually running Game Show (while The Price Is Right has run for five more years overall and started twelve years earlier, it also spent seven years off the air; also, AQOS didn't broadcast any episodes in 1973 or 1978). It has only had five regular presenters (Stuart Hall (1968), David Vine (1970-78), David Coleman (1979-97), Sue Barker (1997-2021), and Paddy McGuinness (since 2021)).
  • Radio Rochela was a Venezuelan late-night television sketch comedy and variety show, aired 1959-2010.
  • Ranger Rick started publication in January 1967 and continues to this day.
  • Ric Hochet (1955-2010), a Franco-Belgian comic featuring an amateur detective that solves crimes. A reboot has been made in 2015 with new writers.
  • Scooby-Doo (September 1969–present) Multiple series; at least one series was in first-run almost every year from 1969–91 and since 2002, plus one or more direct-to-video movies each year since 1998 and several live-action films. Something of an unusual example, due to the comparatively short nature of each incarnation. So far, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated holds the record at 52 episodes in two seasons. Despite a relatively modest episode count by the standards of most long-runners, they collectively make up a mythology of nearly 400 episodes.
  • Die Sendung mit der Maus (German Edutainment Show for children, airing since March 7, 1971)
  • Sesame Street debuted on November 10, 1969 and has run to this day, with nearly 4,600 episodes so far.
  • Shoten (Broadcast weekly on NTV since 1966; Japan's second longest-running show, with 2,400+ episodes to date; has used the same Opening Theme since 1969)
  • The Sooty Show ran roughly from 1952-2004 under slightly different title changes and presenters. A new series was broadcast in 2011 with a new presenter and premise but the same core characters with another due in 2013.
  • Star Trek celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2016. Since its debut in September 1966 it's never gone more than 4-5 years without a show on the air or a movie in the works. Spinoffs (and one prequel) aired nonstop from 1987 through 2005, a new prequel launched in 2017, a new sequel launched in 2020, an animated comedy launched in 2020 (with future series having been announced), a spinoff of the new prequel launched in 2022, and feature films have been regularly released since 1979 (except for a gap between 2002 and 2009).
  • Tatort (also known as Scene of the Crime in the USA) is a German-language detective series which began airing in November 1970 on Das Erste in West Germany, in 1972 on ORF 2 in Austria, and from 1990-2001 and again starting in 2011 on SF1 (now SRF 1) in Switzerland, making it the oldest currently airing crime show in the world. Its East German counterpart Polizeiruf 110 has aired over 350 episodes since June 1971, on Fernsehen der DDR until 1990 and on Das Erste following the re-unification; both shows share a timeslot in The Berlin Republic. To celebrate the re-unification, Tatort and Polizeiruf 110 co-produced the crossover episode "Unter Brüdern" ("Among Brothers"), which aired on 28 October 1990.
  • The Ultra Series, a popular Japanese Tokusatsu franchise that began in January 1966. So far, 30+ shows (totally over 1,200 episodes), 30+ movies, a number of specials, and numerous manga and video games. Also Guinness World Record holder for most spinoffs.
  • University Challenge (on ITV from September 1962 to December 1987 with Bamber Gascoigne, and on BBC2 since September 1994 with Jeremy Paxman; British television's longest-running quiz show)
  • Vecernicek is a Czech bedtime story program that has been running every evening since 1965, even with the opening unchanged for all these years.
  • W5 (airing since 1966 on CTV, longest-running newsmagazine program in North America)
  • The World at Six (flagship dinner-hour newscast on CBC Radio One since October 1966)
  • The World Tonight is the longest-running English-language newscast in the Philippines, airing on ABS-CBN and ANC since November 21, 1966 (except during Ferdinand Marcos-ruled martial law dictatorship from 1972 to 1986).
  • Yakari has been made since 1969 and is still been published.
  • Yoko Tsuno, a Franco-Belgian comic that began in 1970 and is still being published.
  • The Young and the Restless (since March 1973, 12,000+ episodes)

    At least 60 years 
  • The Railway Series (1945-2011, would later become Thomas & Friends).
  • While a student at the University of Kansas, Max Falkenstien began calling Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball games for a local radio station in 1946. After graduating in 1948, he continued to call Jayhawks games for more than a half-century, retiring at the end of his 60th season in 2006. His tenure was the longest in US college sports until 2021.
  • Come Dancing, the BBC televised ballroom dancing competition, originally ran from 1949-95, with intermittent specials in 1996 and 1998. Its revival with celebrity contestants as Strictly Come Dancing has aired since 2004, spawning the worldwide Dancing with the Stars phenomenon.
  • American sportscaster Vin Scully announced his first Dodgers baseball game on April 18, 1950, and moved with the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1958. He made his final broadcast on October 2, 2016. His 67-season tenure is the longest any broadcaster has spent with a single team in professional sports and broadcasting history (and not just in America, but the entire world!).
    • Speaking of the Dodgers, their Spanish-language broadcaster Jaime Jarrín was on the job from 1959 until his retirement after his 64th season in 2022. His tenure is second only to Vin Scully.
  • The Major League Baseball Game of the Week aired on Saturday afternoons on various TV networks from 1953 to 1993. There was no Game of the Week in 1994 or 1995; The Baseball Network, an ill-fated joint venture between MLB, ABC, and NBC, completely scrapped national regular-season broadcasts in favor of a highly regionalized model. The Baseball Network was crippled by the 1994–95 players' strike and was dissolved after the 1995 season. Traditional GOTW coverage returned in 1996 with Fox picking up the rights, and it has continued airing there ever since (although in 2012 Fox shifted the bulk of their regular-season coverage from Saturday afternoons to Thursday or Saturday prime-time games under the Baseball Night in America title).
  • The Tonight Show (airing on NBC since September 1954)
  • Godzilla (October 27, 1954-present, the longest-running film franchise in history), with over thirty films and counting (not even including two American reboots), four cartoon series, a puppet show, more than forty video games, and comics by Dark Horse, Marvel, and IDW, among many other appearances.
  • Face the Nation (weekly on CBS since November 7, 1954).
  • The Masters Tournament, the first men's major championship of the golf year, has been aired by CBS every April since 1956—except in 2020, when it was held (and aired by CBS) in November due to COVID-19.
  • Eurovision Song Contest (annually since May 24, 1956)
  • The Price Is Right (November 26, 1956–September 3, 1965, then since September 4, 1972; originally hosted by Bill Cullen {1956-65}, then Bob Barker {1972-2007}, then Drew Carey {2007-present})
  • Matysiakowie (Polish radio drama airing weekly since 1956)
  • Datamation is the world's oldest and longest running computer magazine, having launched in 1957 and ran in print until 1998, and continues to this day as a website. While it won't make the Print Long-Runners list, it's still impressive considering commercially-available computers had only become available in 1951 and were still in their infancy.
  • The Sky at Night (UK astronomy TV show): has aired once a lunar cycle since 24 April 1957; presented by Patrick Moore from the first episode until his death in December 2012, during which he missed a total of one episode due to food poisoning, making him the world record holder for longest tenure presenting a television programme until Brazil's Silvio Santos surpassed him in March 2019.
  • The absurdist plays La cantatrice chauve (The Bald Soprano) and La lecon (The Lesson) by Eugène Ionesco have been on a permanent double bill at the Théâtre de la Huchette in Paris since February 1957. The Bald Soprano also earned the Guinness World Record for longest play ever (though it has since been outdone), with one theater troupe in New Jersey performing it on a continuous loop for more than 23 hours.note 
  • Telediario is a Spanish daily news program which started running in September 1957. Nowadays, its title has become synonymous with "TV news" in Spain.
  • Today (AKA The Today Programme), a British news daily on BBC Radio running since October 1957. There is a (probably apocryphal) story that if a British nuclear submarine commander failed to receive the Today programme three days in a row, they were to assume Britain had been nuked and open their sealed orders.
  • Blue Peter (4,000+ episodes since October 1958, the longest-running children's show ever)
  • The Smurfs: Titular characters debuted on October 23, 1958 in the Johan and Peewit story "The Smurfs and the Magic Flute" ("La Flûte à six schtroumpfs" in French, literally "The Flute of Six Smurfs"). The Smurfs later starred in their own comic series, with the first story published in Spirou magazine on July 2, 1959 and the first comics album following on November 30, 1963. Newer comics are still being made after Peyo's death in 1992.
  • Dutch sports program Studio Sport has aired since April 1959.
  • Supergirl: Superman's Distaff Counterpart was created in May 1959, and has been an important part of The DCU since then, being featured in solo books and anthologies, and showing up in movies, TV shows, and cartoons.
  • Portuguese daily news show Telejornal was first broadcast in October 1959; its name is synonymous with "TV news" in Portugal.
  • Okaasan to Issho, a Japanese children's show, premiered in October 1959 and has been running since.
  • Asterix: The comic books started in October 1959.
  • Stop motion bedtime story series Unser Sandmännchen (now simply known as Sandmännchen, or Little Sandman) is the world's longest-running animated series. It began airing on East German state broadcaster DFF in November 1959 and has outlived both its West German counterpart, Das Sandmännchen, and the German Democratic Republic itself (indeed, German re-unification and the greater popularity of Unser Sandmännchen led to the demise of Das Sandmännchen in 1991). It continues to air on the various ARD member networks to this day, having racked up over 20,000 episodes.
  • GeGeGe no Kitarō: The original manga ran for about ten years, between 1960 and 1969, and multiple sequels versions of the manga and anime adaptations have been written since, developing a rather different canon as the series progressed. The different anime adaptations have been running more or less from 1968 to the present, with the sixth adaptation airing in 2018. It has also been adapted into multiple live-action versions and video games, as well as earning a place in several theme parks, like Fujikyu Highland.
  • W Jezioranach (Polish radio drama, kind of rural counterpant to Matysiakowie, airing weekly since 1960)
  • The Nature of Things (science documentary series on CBC since November 1960; hosted continuously by zoologist and environmentalist David Suzuki since 1979)
  • Coronation Street (over 10,000 episodes since December 9, 1960). Even more impressive is that every single episode has survived to this day – almost unheard of for a show that's been around this long.
  • Spy vs. Spy has been going in MAD magazine since January 1961. Though its original artist Prohias had to hand over drawing duties to other artists, it has been continuously published since that date—though from 2020 on, only year-end special issues feature new content.
  • The Renzoku Terebi Shousetsu (literally "serial TV novel"), colloquially known as "Asadora" ("Morning Drama", due to its timeslot) is a Soap Opera series that airs in the mornings on NHK in Japan, Monday through Saturday, with each season featuring a new story. First airing in April 1961, "Asadora" seasons used to run annually, but starting in 1975 with Mizuiro no toki, the series switched to a six-month format. This has resulted in ninety-six distinct seasons and stories, with no sign of slowing down as "Asadora" remains one of the biggest ratings draws on Japanese TV. Some of these seasons are extremely famous in Japan - Oshin, the most successful, drew TV ratings of sixty-three percent during its run - and you can expect other Japanese media to make reference to them from time to time.
  • The BBC public affairs programme Panorama (see the "70 years" folder) spawned a German version in June 1961, produced by NDR, aired on ARD, and also called Panorama. ARD still airs it.
  • Four Corners (Australian current affairs show, running since August 1961)
  • Songs of Praise is the BBC's Christian music programme. It began in October 1961 and still running to this day, having produced 2,300 episodes at the last count in 2012.
  • It's Academic (Washington, D.C. televised academic game show): debuted October 7, 1961 and has been going ever since; listed in Guinness World Records as the longest-running quiz show in television history, and almost certainly the longest-running game show ever.
    • The show's creator, Sophie Altman, remained as executive producer until her death on May 24, 2008, shortly after production wrapped on Season 47.
    • Mac McGarry hosted for the first 50 years, through June 25, 2011. When Season 51 began, Hillary Howard filled in for an ill McGarry but became permanent after he announced his retirement in November, although he appeared one last time to officially hand off the show to her.
  • In December 1961, Joel Utley became the men's basketball radio announcer for the Kentucky Wesleyan Panthers, representing current NCAA Division II member Kentucky Wesleyan College. After 61 seasons, he retired before the 2022–23 season.
  • The Old Master Q comics started on February 3, 1962 and have been running ever since. It's still in print today (despite the death of its creator Alphonse Wong in 2017) and is currently the oldest Asian comic series in publication.
  • Ireland's The Late Late Show (since July 1962, has only had three regular presenters (Gay Byrne (1962-99), Pat Kenny (1999-2009), Ryan Tubridy (2009-2023) and Patrick Kielty (since 2023). Not to be confused with the American The Late Late Show, which has "only" been running since 1995.)
  • Monica's Gang is one of the longest-running Brazilian comic series, having been running since the 1960s. Monica herself made her grand debut on February 11, 1963, and got her own comic series on March 3 of that year.
  • Three days after Monica made her debut, the first book in the Clifford the Big Red Dog children's series was released. The original author Norman Bridwell released 78 books in the series before his death in late 2014. Two final books were published the next year. A TV adaptation ran briefly in the early 2000s, and a second TV series began airing in 2019. Also, a live-action animated film adaptation was initially announced in 2012, but fell into development hell for several years before being scheduled for a late 2020 release. COVID-19 led to that film being delayed until late 2021.
  • General Hospital with over 15,000 episodes since April 1, 1963. It holds the record for longest running American soap opera in production.
  • On that same date, German broadcaster ZDF went on the air, as did its flagship news programme heute. The programme has aired to this day, and has occupied its current 19:00 timeslot since 1973.
  • The Brazilian variety show Programa Silvio Santos has been running since June 2, 1963. Silvio Santos has been host for its entire run—by himself until 2021, and since then with his daughter Patricia Abravanel as co-host.
  • Doctor Who ran from 1963 to 1989, and again from 2005 to present, for a total of 39 full seasons, plus specials. It is listed in Guinness World Records as both the longest-running, non-consecutive, science fiction television series (when awarded in 2006, the show had 43 years under its belt since the first episode/serial, and a total of 723 episodes), as well as the most successful science fiction series. When it was put on hiatus in 1989, it was announced as a temporary measure. During the hiatus, The BBC produced a telemovie, and licensed novelizations of the old episodes, books with new stories (which they decided to handle themselves after the telemovie), an ongoing comic strip, and eventually audio dramas, so it was no big stretch that the BBC celebrated the franchise's 60th anniversary in 2023. Also a counter-example to the claim in the introduction that these shows avoided being Screwed by the Network, as an attempt to cancel it in the mid-80s led to the hiatus a few years later (basically, when it returned from that attempt at cancellation, it got rescheduled in a death slot against Coronation Street, giving the BBC cause to stop recommissioning it).

    At least 70 years 
  • Mutt and Jeff ran in newspapers from November 15, 1907 to June 26, 1983.
  • Guiding Light: 72 years, 7 months, 26 days (57 of those on television), from January 25, 1937 to September 19, 2009. It was listed in Guinness World Records as the longest continuously-running program on any medium, in any genre, until the CBS World News Roundup broke its record in November of 2010. It would take a listener over 18 months, 24 hours a day, to listen to it from beginning to end (although the large number of Missing Episodes from the first 40 years would make such an archive binge impossible). It may be the largest single work of fiction in human history.
  • Desert Island Discs has been airing on BBC Radio since 29 January 1942 (apart from a hiatus from January 1946 to January 1951). It still uses the original theme tune, Eric Coates' "By the Sleepy Lagoon" (with overdubbed seagull noises), and has only had four regular presenters (Roy Plomley (1942-85), Michael Parkinson (1985-88), Sue Lawley (1988-2006), Kirsty Young (since 2006)).
  • Composer of the Week, British broadcasting's longest-running classical music programme, began airing five times a week on the BBC Home Service on 2 August 1943 as This Week's Composer, then transferred in 1964 to the newly-created Third Programme (now known as Radio 3). The first featured composer was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who has featured almost annually ever since (as have Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frederic Handel, Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven).
  • Arbeidsvitaminen (Work vitamins), a music programme on AVRO in the Netherlands, is the longest running daily radio show in the world, having started in February 1946.
  • Lucky Luke - Started in 1946.
  • Sazae-san: The original manga ran from 1946 to 1974, while the anime adaptation began in October 1969 on Fuji Television and continues to this day. In addition, the title character is still played by the original voice actress, Midori Kato, who has been honored by Guinness World Records as the voice actor with the longest tenure playing the same character.
  • Gardeners' Question Time has broadcast since April 1947 on BBC Radio, keeping pretty much the same format (a chaired panel of horticultural experts answers questions posed by the audience or posted in by listeners) ever since, nowadays augmented by cutaways to additional recorded features.
  • Weeki Wachee Springs, a Florida Theme Park famous for its mermaid show, debuted in 1947 and is still active today.
  • Meet the Press - weekly on NBC television since November 6, 1947; debuted on Mutual radio in 1945 as American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press. Considered the longest-running televised program in American history.
  • Sports Report has been running on BBC Radio since January 1948, and still uses its original theme tune, "Out of the Blue" by Hubert Bath.
  • Tex Willer started publication in Italy in 1948, making it the longest running comic originating from there as well as the most popular.
  • While by 1993 there wasn't a single member of the National Wrestling Alliance that had been around since 1980, the governing body itself did not let this setback stop it from continuing on as it had since 1948, making do with granting "territories" or "rights" to use the NWA name to newer promotions. Its title belts also continued to be used by many of its former members who still respected its authority, if to a much lesser extent.
  • Alix, a well-known Franco-Belgian comic started in 1948 and even after the creator's passing, other writers continue his work to this very day.
  • ABC World News Tonight (1948–), currently anchored by David Muir.
  • Tove Jansson's Finnish children's book series The Moomins has been very popular and well-known in its home country for a long time. The first book was published in 1945, but the popularity has also been helped by the comics drawn by Tove and her brother, as well as numerous adaptations, the most famous of which is the anime series from the 90s, which has been dubbed into several languages. Even after Tove's death, new books and comics have appeared, although their main target audience has now been children. The newest animated series started in 2019.
  • Noddy: Originally started as a series of books by Enid Blyton published from 1949-63, and spawned two puppet shows, a 12 minuted animated film, three stop-motion series, three CGI-animated adaptations, and a children's sitcom based on the character. Apart from a gap from 1982-92, Noddy has been a fixture of British television continuously since 1955.
  • Giro 413 has aired weekly on Danmarks Radio (DR) since January 8, 1950. This is a family program to which people donate money collected at celebrations such as wedding anniversaries and 50th birthdays. Listeners also request songs. DR in turn donates the money collected to a variety of charities.
  • Unshackled, a Christian Radio Drama produced by Chicago rescue mission Pacific Garden Mission, has been continuously produced since 1950 and is (along with the CBS World News Roundup) one of the lone remaining shows still airing on radio from the Golden Age Of Radio.
  • The Archers (radio soap set in a rural farming community) has run since January 1, 1951 on BBC radio (with its pilot episodes having aired on May 29–June 2, 1950), and is now the world's longest-running extant Soap Opera in any medium (since the cancellation of Guiding Light).
  • Crazy Horse: 72 years and counting since 1951. Famous Parisian cabaret with nude dancers-based shows, with some new numbers every now and then.
  • Hallmark Hall of Fame (airing on various networks since December 1951)
  • Today (American morning news show, running daily since January 1952)
  • Efteling, Dutch theme park (opened in 1952).
  • MAD magazine launched with an October/November 1952 issue, did not get the memo to close down in 2019, and is still going, although almost all of its content is now reprinted.
    • Al Jaffee's work first appeared in the pages of MAD in 1955. Jaffee left shortly after to follow founding editor Harvey Kurzman. After Kurzman's post-Mad project Humbug folded in 1958, Jaffee returned to Mad and stayed there until December 2019, retiring completely in June 2020 at age 99.
  • The news programme Tagesschau was first aired on NWDR in Germany on Boxing Day 1952 and went to being broadcast seven days a week in 1961. The programme now serves as ARD's flagship news brand and still occupies the same 20:00 time slot as it did in 1952.
  • WWE ran its first show as the Capitol Wrestling Corporation on January 7, 1953.
  • The James Bond franchise began on April 13, 1953 with the UK publication of Casino Royale, and has continued long after its creator's death in 1964, thanks to...
  • A theatre example is Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap, which has been running continuously on the West End since November 1952 (interrupted from March 2020–May 2021 by COVID-19).
  • Brain of Britain, Britain's longest-running quiz programme in any medium, began as a segment of What Do You Know? on BBC Radio in 1953, and has been a standalone programme on Radio 4 since 1967. It has only had three regular presenters: Franklin Engelmann from 1953-72, Robert Robinson from 1973-2008, and Russell Davies since 2009.
  • Current affairs show Panorama has been airing on the BBC since November 1953 and is presently the longest-running programme in the history of British television.

    At least 80 years 
  • The BBC has televised Wimbledon since 1937, though no tournaments were held from 1940–45 due to World War II and 2020 due to COVID-19.
  • CBS World News Roundup made its first broadcast on March 13, 1938 as a special report on the Anschluss; still runs every day at 8:00 AM EST. It surpassed Guiding Light's record on November 8, 2010, and is now listed as the longest continuously-running program in any medium.
  • The core of The DCU. The only classic Justice League founder absent is Martian Manhunter (1955).
  • Captain America, the original Human Torch, and Namor the Sub-Mariner all are over 80 years old, the Human Torch and Namor from 1939, and Captain America from 1941.
  • The National Research Council Time Signal, heard at 1:00 PM EST every day since November 5, 1939 on the CBC radio network.

    Literally Older Than Television 
  • Bibendum (Better known by English-speaking audiences as the Michelin Man) was first introduced by the Michelin brothers as an advertisement at the Lyon Exposition of 1894, and has been continuously used by the Michelin company in advertising ever since.
  • The Katzenjammer Kids is a comic strip that debuted December 1897, and has been published ever since, with new strips still appearing regularly today. This makes it most likely the longest-running piece of serial fiction in any medium or format.
  • Bécassine was in continuous publication from 1905-62. The character is still used in advertising.
  • Gasoline Alley debuted on November 25th, 1918. The original protagonist, Walt Wallet, is still alive, and is now 122 years old due to Frank King's insistence that the characters be allowed to age, even though his wife Phyllis died of old age in 2004 and his adopted son Skeezix is now past 100. Walt is so old, in fact, that they had a story arc involving him being investigated for Social Security fraud, since the government just couldn't believe he could be that old.
  • Felix the Cat is the longest-lasting animated cartoon character in history, making his debut in 1919 (and if we count an even earlier prototype short, it may even be 1917) having appeared in over 150 theatrical cartoons, decades worth of comics, hundreds of TV cartoons, two movies, and the two TV revivals The Twisted Tales of Felix the Cat and Baby Felix, and he is still appearing in merchandise to this day. In fact, one of the very first TV broadcasts featured Felix way back in 1928. Meow!
  • After a ban on private, commercial radio stations implemented during World War I was lifted by the US government, such stations began to broadcast in 1919-1921. WWJ in Detroit and KDKA in Pittsburgh were the first stations to reach the century mark, having broadcast regularly since 1920. KCBS in San Jose/San Francisco has lasted longer overall, but resumed post-WWI broadcast a year after the former two stations were established.
  • The Cthulhu Mythos is generally traced back to H. P. Lovecraft's 1919 short story "Dagon", although Cthulhu himself wouldn't appear until 1928. Embraced and perpetuated by Lovecraft's contemporary correspondents and by generations of successors, the resulting Shared Universe has spawned films, video games, tabletop RPGs, comics, and enough written fiction to overload bookshelves.
  • Popeye was first introduced on January 17, 1929, in the comic strip Thimble Theater, which was later renamed after him. Olive Oyl is older still; she appeared in the strip nine years earlier when it debuted on December 19, 1919.
  • Lørdagsbarnetimen (The Saturday Children's Hour) was a weekly radio series produced by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) which aired every Saturday from December 1924 to September 2010 (apart from a forced hiatus during World War II).
  • The Grand Ole Opry: Airing weekly on Nashville radio station WSM-AM since 1925, with an edited version of the program being carried on national radio and television outlets since the 1940s.
  • The Shipping Forecast has been broadcast on one BBC Radio station or another since October 1925 (except for an enforced absence caused by World War II). It's called BBC Radio 4 its home since 1978. And before the BBC broadcast it, the Met Office (i.e., the UK's national weather service) first transmitted it by radio in 1911, with a break from 1914 to 1921 (WWI and its aftermath). The service celebrated its 150th anniversary in August 2017.
  • Radioavisen: Daily news broadcast on Danmarks Radio (DR) starting August 1, 1926. At first with two daily programs, gradually with more. Now there is a Radioavis every hour. Aired nationwide since 1927. Danmarks Radio is also responsible for Julehilsen til Grønland (Christmas greetings to Greenland), first aired in 1932 as a means for people in Denmark to send greetings to friends and family in Greenland and vice versa.
  • Mickey Mouse is one of the world's most beloved cartoon characters. Making his debut in 1928, he has appeared in over 130 theatrical cartoons, 8 movies, hundreds of comics, 10 TV shows, and many video games.
  • The Daily Service is a 15-minute religious programme which has aired daily on BBC Radio since 1928, making it the longest-running daily radio broadcast in British history.
  • Hamburger Hafenkonzert (Hamburg harbor concert): Broadcast weekly on NDR in Germany since June 1929 — even through WWII.
  • Music and the Spoken Word: Weekly broadcast of music (and a short sermon) by The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, still widely known by its former name of Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which started in 1929.
  • Analog has remained in print since January 1930, with monthly or semi-monthly issues every year.
  • The Shadow debuted in 1930 as a radio Horror Host for suspense stories, but quickly migrated to pulp novels and comic strips until 1949. Following two short-lived attempts at a Shadow television series in the '50s, the character was revived in print in 1963, and several new comic book tales were released in the decades to follow as '30s-retro miniseries, or as one-shot original accompaniments to collected reprints. Most recently, the character has appeared on film in the 1994 Alec Baldwin feature and from 2011-present in comic miniseries from Dynamite Entertainment.
  • Pause Signal Danmarks Radio (DR). This little tune first aired on August 28, 1931 and has since been used to fill up short spaces between programs. The tune is a melody from the 1300s, the oldest known Danish folk melody. Irregular scheduling, yet frequently heard for decades. Nowadays used as regular broadcast only on one channel (P5), the tune has become waiting music on DR's telephone system, and since early 2009 the signal that calls the audience to the second half of concerts in the broadcaster's new concert hall.
  • Hockey Night in Canada began airing on radio in November 1931 and moved to television in November 1952 (the first year of regular television broadcasts in Canada), and is the world's longest-running sports show.
  • The Metropolitan Opera airs a radio broadcast season each year. Although going since Christmas of 1931 (and broadcast in January 1910 over experimental radio broadcasts), unlike The Guiding Light it only airs episodes during a season and is not continuous.
  • The first "Lucha Libre" promotion in Mexico, EMLL, got started in 1933. While it later changed its name to CMLL, this was representative of its horizons expanding from "Mexico" to "Mundial", ownership and programming remained continuous and it is the longest continuously running pro wrestling promotion in history.
  • The Brazilian obligatory 7 p.m. radio news show A Voz do Brasil (when translated to English, "The Voice of Brazil") has been running since 1935.
  • Mumfie the elephant, who made his debut in a children's novel in 1936, has spawned numerous books (including various reprints of the original Katherine Tozer stories), 2 TV series (soon to be three with the upcoming reboot of Magic Adventures of Mumfie, a radio play, a direct-to-video movie and numerous pieces of merchandise (most of them being stuffed animals of the main character).
  • La Hora Nacional, a radio program produced by the Mexican government, has ran every Sunday since July 25, 1937.
  • Tolkien's Legendarium, which Tolkien started working on during World War I. While no individual series of either books or adaptations qualifies, the franchise as a whole definitely does and is still going today. It all starts with Tolkien's foundational novels: The Hobbit (1937), The Lord of the Rings (three volumes, 1954-1955), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (1962), and The Silmarillion (1977, published posthumously). From there we have the three animated adaptations (1978-1980), the first video game adaptations by Melbourne House (1982-1988), the various tabletop RPGs based on the setting (starting with Middle-earth Role Playing and its supplements, 1982-1996), The History of Middle-earth cobbled together from Tolkien's unpublished manuscripts with commentary from his son (twelve volumes, 1983-1996), the three blockbuster live-action film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings directed by Peter Jackson (2001-2003), the other three blockbuster films by Jackson adapting The Hobbit (2012-2014), the Middle-earth: Shadow video games (two so far, one in 2014 and another in 2017), The Children of Húrin (incomplete by the time of Tolkien's death, edited and published by his son in 2007), Beren and Luthien (ditto, 2017), The Fall of Gondolin (ditto, 2018), the Amazon television series The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2021), and the The Lord of the Rings Online MMORPG (received eight expansion packs, 2007-2022). Plus quite a few other things.

Statler: It's impressive that this show lasted 50 years.
Waldorf: It's impressive this show lasted more than one!
Both: Do-ho-ho-ho-hoh!

 
Feedback

Video Example(s):

Alternative Title(s): Long Runner, Long Running

Top

Simpsons Break Gunsmoke Record

The Simpsons celebrates breaking Gunsmoke's record to become the longest running primetime scripted TV series in history.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (19 votes)

Example of:

Main / MilestoneCelebration

Media sources:

Report