My question is how long do you like your TV shows to be? I've enabled Multi-voting so you can choose your favorite times. 

These times do not include ads, if you watch TV with ads, use the following chart: 
Less than 20 minutes = 15 minute shows 
20 minutes = 30 minute with ad shows 
30 minutes = 45 minute with ad shows 
40 minutes = 1 hour with ad shows
1 hour = 1:15 hr with ad shows
1+ hours = 1:30 hr or more with ad shows

As for me, I love the standard 40 minute TV shows (1 hour with ads). What about you?

I would have to say it really depends on the show.
For some shows, sometimes an hr seems like too long per episode...

I believe television shows should be at least one hour. I mean, thirty minutes for the average television show is way too short, considering there are commercials and it is still just short within general. Also, if you include the commercials, the show itself is not even twenty minutes or so.

The average length of TV shows seems to be about 20-30 minutes, which I think is very fitting most of the time, because sometimes you don't want or can watch more. And less than 20 minutes would be pretty annoying.

But other times, when it's very exciting or interesting - and I'm sure you know this feeling - you could watch hours of it. Obviously the producers can't change the length of episodes for every person whenever one of the viewers feels like it. That's why recorded or bought series are very useful; just watch how much you want to and watch the rest later.

So, in average I'm for 30 minutes.

EDIT: You write that most shows are about 40 minutes long? Either you watch other shows or it's just different in Germany. ^^'

It should be half an hour. Anything longer than that can drag on unless it is a well prepared program like Doctor Who or Sherlock Holmes but if it is a soap, you don't need to shout for that long the actors will loose their voices!
Anything shorter just makes the program feel rushed.

I would have to say that the standard would be 30 minute long episodes including commercials. This is because that is what most shows run for. Pretty much every single sitcom and most animated shows run for 30 minutes. I don't like the 15 minute long shows because there is less room to put stuff in. I only like the hour long shows if it's a drama or if it's a special episode. 

I also don't see 45 minutes episodes unless they are specials as well.

Again, I feel hour long episodes should be used only for those big budget shows like House, or for specials. One example would be The Simpsons, I was really hoping that they would do a one hour long special episode for the 500th episode.

It also depends usually on the network that the show airs on. Nickleodeon has some of the shortest episodes. Curretly, Spongebob, Fairly Odd parents, and maybe a few other shows are 15 minutes in length. Almost all of their other shows are all half an hour unless it's a TV movie or a special episode. The same thing goes for Disney and Cartoon Network as well for both animated shows and live actions series.

Then we have networks such as USA. Pretty much all of their shows are one hour long and they rarely show shows that are different lengths frequently. Then, you have networks such as CBS, Fox, and ABC, which throughout most of the day, have their shows last for 30 minutes except for specials, talk shows, dramas, and reality shows.

It all really depends on the program and its importance in my opinion, if it is just an episode of spongebob which there are 2 in each, it should stay the same. Most of the shows I watch span from the 30 to 1 hour range even though I don't watch tv much, but anything less than 20 minutes is going to be pretty much nonsense because it all fits in such a short time period. It seems like some movies like Harry potter for an example, would be about 3 hours even (for example) and on tv they stretch it out to like 5 or more because of stupid commercials. Commercials are just really annoying and they can make any short program seem like it lasts and eon. But that is just my word on the matter. 

Is this excluding advertisement breaks? If so I'd say 30 - 45 minutes at the very least.

I would say the normal amount of time for me would be about 30 minutes.. although I do enjoy watching anime that is 20 minutes a lot of the time. I also like some shows that end up being an hour each episode especially if it is a drama type of show. I really love dramas and that just means there is way more detail! Most of the time though I would say 20-30 minutes on average.

I think that you are a little bit off time with this - usually an hour long show has 15 min. of commercials; which would mean an hour show is 45 min.

I'm not sure how to answer.

With Sherlock I find the one hour+ thing quite unnecessary. I think It really depends on the show. For certain show an hour might seem too long or not needed. For comedies I would suggest 20-25 mins just like the Big Bang Theory. But for mysteries or sci-fi shows I think it would be appropriate for it to be 40 mins long because you can work with the time easier. This is all excluding commercials by the way.

I personally think they should be one hour long because it makes it easy to plan your time around them if you watch them on demand.

tRIUNE : Sorry about that. I'm basing my estimates off shows like "The Big Bang Theory" where two episodes is 1 hour and 42 minutes without ads. Other shows like White Collar go for about 43 minutes without ads. I rounded down, so what I mean there is actually 42-43 minutes. I'll change that.

Probably about 1 hour. I don't want it to be too long because I may miss it or something. But including commercials would probably 50 minutes just for the show. They should probably stop every 15 minutes telling what they did earlier. I think it is a good idea though.

Well it depends like if I really like the show or not. It also depends on if it has a good plot for each episode. 

A show should be as long as it takes to get its episodes point across. Now I know that a season is to tell a whole story but what I mean by this is don't have an hour long episode show and have half of that episode drag on with pointless crap. Tv shows like the Simpsons and Family Guy for example don't need an hour. Where as shows like Walking Dead and Breaking Bad could use the whole hour and it not be boring (most of the time). Its also nice when they have a good story to tell and you get two part episodes sometimes shown back to back (which is a great treat when it happens on a show you love).

TV shows should 30 minutes long. (and i dont mean 2 episodes for 15 minutes). People would actually watch a show that long and not be bored because it short or long.

If shows are over an hour long (like Sherlock), I tend to call them "movies", so I'm going to say either 30 minutes or 45 minutes would be best.

I think 30 minutes is good. Unless it's something with no continuation like Spongebob, 15 minutes is too short. But I wouldn't want to watch something an hour long, unless it's really that great I would just get bored.

It should be no longer than 30mins sometimes, commercials can take up time. But, it depends on what kind of show they are. Some can take up to an hour or 15 mins.