By the way, the question, "why have a short program at all" is far from rhetorical. I liked the old cheesefest format just fine. One program, winner take all, and the whole contest fills a nice television slot.
Well, the whole contest doesn't fill a nice television slot. A nice television slot is six long programs in an hour. But how is it decided which six skaters get to compete?
U.S. Nationals has one to two dozen competitors per discipline. Well, fewer in the years when there were hardly any senior dance teams in the country.
Worlds has . . . more than 50 ladies these days.
Olympics has 30 before withdrawals, or 24 after the long program cut.
The ISU is trying to cut those numbers somewhat, but they're not going to cut them down to only 6.
The GP Final only has 6, or fewer pairs and dance teams originally. That was more or less a made-for-TV event, like the invitational cheesefests.
How can you cut down the fields to sizes manageable for TV slots?
Hold more competitions -- get all the skaters to skate their one program at regional events, then bring the top finishers to a central location for quarter finals or semifinals, and then bring the top six to the big event with the expensive tickets and the
Except that fans who travel across the world to see the big event often want more for their money than the handful of skaters that TV audiences have patience for.
Or bring everyone to one central location, divide them into groups if there are too many entries, hold initial rounds and make a cut. Hold an intermediate round and make a cut. When you get the field down to a manageable size, that's who qualifies for the final.
Is it better to narrow down the field as drastically as possible as soon as possible? Or is it better whittle it down gradually and to leave the final round as a several-hour event for each discipline, a full evening's entertainment for the paying audience, perhaps seeded so that TV can package only the last few skaters who have a chance at the title?
Is it better to have skaters who survive each cut skate the same program in each successive round, or is there value in giving the skaters different tasks to emphasize in different rounds of competition and giving audiences who want to watch the semifinals a different program to watch from each skater?
The competitors, the competition organizers, the TV networks, the casual fans, and the avid fans might all have different answers to those questions.
What serves the TV networks and casual fans best might bring in the most outside money to the sport. But if it works against the best interests of those who are actually part of the sport, is it worth the money?
And would casual fans really be served if the opportunities for high-level, high-profile competition are so limited to easily televisable packages that there's less incentive for up-and-coming skaters to stay in the sport until senior level, thus diluting the field so that the 6th-best skater who makes it to the TV broadcast is as far below the winner in quality as the 18th-place skater in a deeper field?
So compromises that allow TV networks to package smaller portions of the larger contest for casual-fan consumption, e.g., short programs to seed the start order for three hours worth of long programs, may be in order.