User blog comment:Paul.rea/Teen Wolf News 072813/@comment-63.141.204.48-20130731175135/@comment-4091815-20130731221951

The primary reason for dividing the Season has to do with the logistics of shooting, added special effects and editing the episodes.

It takes 7 and 1/2 to 8 days to film a single episode.

The first 12 episodes took right at 100 days of shooting.

Like most people - the actors of Teen Wolf don't work all the time. They take weekends and holidays and such so it took from December till May to film the first 12.

It took from May till June to get the first 3 episodes ready for air and subsequent episodes have been in the editing room up until just a couple days before their airdate.

Even if they had not taken a summer break - they would not have new episodes ready to air when this 12 finishes its run.

So the show would have gone into a mid-season hiatus until they could finish shooting and editing new episodes.

By my estimation, if they had continued without a break, it would be October or November before new episodes would have been fully ready to air.

That brings us to the other reason for waiting until January to bring out new episodes.

If they came back in the fall, Teen Wolf would be competing for ratings with all of the major networks as they all roll out their new shows in September and October.

One of the ratings strategies MTV and most other cable networks employ to garner ratings is to "NOT" compete with the big networks.

Teen Wolf debuts in June - there is little or no original programming from other networks at that time.

The second half of Season 3 will debut in January - this is also a lull in original programming. The big networks are holding back new episodes to the lucrative spring sweeps seasons.

By hitting in the lulls, cable programmers attract viewers that might otherwise be occupied with their favorite shows elsewhere.

Finally, the season was divided into two parts because the writers are telling two separate 12 episode stories so it was an artistic choice as well.