User blog comment:Sibuna345/Season 3 No. of Episodes/@comment-30671736-20120909171709/@comment-4751816-20120911021858

Not all of the 7 months is actual filming. There are typically weeks of read-throughs, plus about 2-5 days of shooting per episode. Viacom is a very legitimate source, too.

All of last season's episodes were 15 minutes each, so 40 episodes of 30 minutes each plus a 90 minute episode would be similar to the last season. I think it works out to 90 minutes fewer than season 2, if I'm doing my math correctly.