For the marketing executives whose job it is to round up eyeballs to watch television, the summer is turning out to be hazy, crazy, anything but lazy. A deluge of original programming is replacing many of the reruns that typically dominate schedules this time of year, offering viewers perhaps the most new summertime series since the early decades of the medium, when so-called summer replacement shows filled in for 13 weeks when the networks’ premier programs finished their seasons and went on vacation. By one count, broadcast networks and cable channels are introducing 88 shows from late May, when the 2013-14 season ended, through late September, when the 2014-15 season will begin. Add the new series on websites like Hulu and YouTube, along with new episodes of streaming video series like “Orange Is the New Black” on Netflix, and “the choices are bountiful,” said Marc Berman, editor in chief of TV Media Insights.
