Mad Men Season Five Coming in 2012

AMC has officially green-lighted the fifth season of the highly regarded series Mad Men which is largely credited with having first established the credibility the network holds today. The show will be back in March 2012 which means there will have been a gap of 17 months from the end of season four to the start of season five. In the meantime AMC has its new original series The Killing debuting next week, Breaking Bad season 4 for the summer, and The Walking Dead‘s second season for the fall.

There are some conflicts still at hand however that will have to be ironed out. Despite the critical acclaim Mad Men is an expensive show to produce and its ratings are relatively low (S4 averaged 2.3 million viewers) so the network is looking for ways to generate profit. Creator and executive producer Matt Weiner is said to be fighting some requests which include more product placement, dropping some regulars from the cast, and trimming back the run time slightly to allow for a few more commercials in each broadcast.

Update: The new contract guarantees a sixth season as well, with an option for a seventh.