Law & Order, much like CSI on Spike or even Family Guy on Adult Swim, is one of those shows you can air constantly because people know the gist of the setup and will just sit back and watch random episodes whenever they happen to catch them without much fuss.

Its a pretty good setup for a "never ending" TV series to have a continuous trickle of watchers.

Also SVU was always shit. The entire premise is that sex crimes are more equal than others and get special treatment because its usually something bad happening to women. Men getting murdered? Eh, fuck it let the regular investigators bumble through it. Woman getting stalked? Call in the Special unit!!