Michael Yarish/AMC 
 
 Lionsgate, the studio behind the critically acclaimed AMC drama “Mad Men,” said Thursday that it had signed a long-term deal with the creator of the series, Matthew Weiner. 
 
 The new deal ensures that Mr. Weiner will continue running the show for two more seasons, and includes an option for a third. That option would take “Mad Men” through its seventh season. The deal was said to be worth $30 million, one of the biggest payouts of its kind in cable television. 
 
 Mr. Weiner said in an interview Thursday evening that he expected the seventh season of “Mad Men” to be its last. “That’s how long the show is,” he said. “I’m just thrilled I get to finish it.” 
 
 Past seasons of “Mad Men” have started in the summer, but AMC affirmed on Thursday that the show, which is now entering its fifth season, would not return until early 2012. 
 
 The future of “Mad Men” had been in doubt since last October when the fourth season ended and Mr. Weiner’s contract expired. Earlier this week, Mr. Weiner said that AMC was insisting on cuts to the cast budget and cuts to the length of each episode. He said in an interview on Tuesday, “All I want to do is continue to make my show, and make it in the way I want to, with the people I want to make it with.” 
 
 After that public statement, the parties involved apparently made peace pretty quickly. In a statement on Thursday evening, Mr. Weiner thanked “Mad Men” fans for their support and thanked AMC and Lionsgate “for agreeing to support the artistic freedom of myself, the cast and the crew so that we can continue to make the show exactly as we have from the beginning.” 
 
 In an interview, Mr. Weiner said his new contract stipulated that cast members “will not be cut for financial considerations,” only for creative reasons. 
 
 In a compromise of sorts, the length of the show may change, but only on television. Mr. Weiner’s new contract specifies that the first and last episode of each season will remain 47 minutes long, the same length as the episodes in previous seasons. For the episodes in between, Mr. Weiner said he will create a 45-minute version for AMC to televise, and a 47-minute “final cut” that will be available in digital formats, like in Apple’s iTunes store. 
 
 “I get to make the show the way I’ve made it” in the past, he said. 
 
 He indicated that AMC planned all along for the show to skip its usual summer premiere this year. “In October, I was told that the show would be on in March 2012,” he said, adding that his attempts to move up the start of the fifth season were stymied. The reason, according to AMC, was that it had other shows in its production pipeline. 
 
 He concluded the interview by saying, “I’m overwhelmed by the expressions of support from the fans and friends of the show. It’s been an incredible experience.” ||||| "I'm not Don Draper, I don't have the stomach for this," said Matt Weiner about the tough negotiations surrounding his just-completed new deal to stay on as executive producer of the cult cable drama "Mad Men" for at least two seasons. 
 
 In an interview, Weiner said his issues with AMC, the cable network that airs "Mad Men" and Lionsgate, the production company behind the show, was not about how much he was getting paid. "Mad Men" is AMC's signature show and follows the lives of ad men in 1960s New York who struggle to adjust to the social and political changes going on around them. It has won three Emmy Awards for best drama. 
 
 "It is beyond money for me, I didn't want to make something that wasn't the show," he said. Weiner's deal will pay him close to $10 million per season, according to people familiar with the terms. 
 
 Weiner, who was under pressure from AMC and Lionsgate to trim costs and be open to adding additional commercial breaks to "Mad Men" said his battle "was always about trying to keep doing the show the way we've done the show." 
 
 There was some compromise from the hands-on producer. While the first and last episodes of the next season of "Mad Men" will run 47 minutes, the rest of the episodes will run 45 minutes, giving AMC a chance to make more money from commercials. Weiner will be able to film 47 minute episodes though for DVDs, iTunes and video on demand. 
 
 Weiner was also resistant to having to trim production costs and potentially lose cast members. The deal for "Mad Men" with AMC runs for two seasons with the current cast. 
 
 "The cast will be intact and people's characters will only leave the story if it suits the story creatively," he said. If the bulk of the cast is on board for a third season, then Weiner will return as well. 
 
 RELATED: 
 
 'Mad Men' creator Matt Weiner agrees to new deal 
 
 Talks stall between "Mad Men" creator Matt Weiner and AMC, Lionsgate 
 
 Full Show Tracker coverage of 'Mad Men' 
 
 -- Joe Flint 
 
 Top photo: Actor Jon Hamm plays hard-drinking advertising executive Don Draper in AMC's "Mad Men." Credit: AMC 
 
 Bottom photo: "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner. Credit: Francois Durand / Getty Images ||||| 'Mad Men' Finale: A Love Letter To Fans Filled With Mostly Happy Endings 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC Frank Ockenfels 3/AMC 
 
 From the beginnings of the Mad Men phenomenon, many of the show's fans wondered if superstar adman Don Draper was destined to write one of the iconic advertising catchphrases of the time. 
 
 So it's a testament to the skills of show creator Matthew Weiner that some regular viewers were still surprised by the show's series finale Sunday, which implies that Don invented the classic 1971 Coca-Cola campaign, "I'd Like to Buy the World a Coke." This, after he concluded a long, soul-searching trip through America with a trip to a California yoga retreat. 
 
 Like many of the developments in Mad Men's final episode, "Person to Person," this conclusion — that Don shrugged off all the self-discovery he'd achieved to go back to being his old self in his old job — is a presumed one. Weiner isn't one to spoon-feed the audience a key plot point, even one that wraps up eight years of tortured self-examination by one of the most compelling lead characters in modern TV. 
 
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 As a fan, I was a little heartened by the show's finale. Weiner resolved nearly every character's story in a mostly positive fashion that close watchers of the show are likely to love. After getting pushed out of McCann Erickson, Joan Harris finally started her company and became her own boss; repressed copywriter Peggy Olson found love with her longtime art director, Stan Rizzo; weaselly striver Pete Campbell got to be a big shot as a top executive at Learjet; and Draper did what we all expected, crafting one of modern advertising's most iconic campaigns. 
 
 As a critic, though, I was a bit underwhelmed by the seven episodes that closed out Mad Men's seventh and final season, which had been stretched over this year and last. Whole characters and story lines seemed unnecessary, like Elizabeth Reaser's tragically damaged waitress who briefly romanced Don. And Don's cross-country journey felt suspiciously like a head fake, intended to keep us from guessing that he might still wind up back in the ad business — this time, with his finger firmly on the pulse of the '70s zeitgeist. 
 
 In a finale that shares its name with a type of long-distance phone connection, it's fitting that the best elements were the phone conversations. Don gets a scolding by telephone from his daughter, Sally, after she tells him his ex-wife Betty has terminal cancer; turns out, he's such a bad dad that the kids wouldn't be better off with him even after their mother is dead. 
 
 When Don calls Betty to confirm the news, he is again told that she would rather go to her grave not seeing him again, and he realizes how much they have lost. And when Don calls Olson, his former protege, to say goodbye to her, he's so broken up that we actually think he's never again coming east of the Mississippi. (Once more, great head fake, Weiner.) 
 
 Because this is Mad Men, few characters get everything they want. Joan loses another self-centered, clueless boyfriend when she reveals she wants to build a business rather than spend every waking hour with him. Peggy may have to wait a decade before she gets a shot at a creative director job. And fans don't get to see Peggy and Joan team up to run their own business as partners. 
 
 Still, it was good to see Weiner actually end the series, because he worked on another show — HBO's The Sopranos — that didn't really end. In a move that sparked a controversy of its own, Sopranos creator David Chase simply cut to black in the middle of the show's final scene, not so much ending the series as stopping it cold. 
 
 In the case of Mad Men, Weiner left viewers with a good sense of where every major character was headed in his or her life as the show closed out. Such an ending is important for a show that people have obsessed over for so long; when a series like that ends, viewers' loyal attentions ought to be rewarded with a finale that gives fans some closure and yet lets them connect the dots a little bit themselves. 
 
 Mad Men will be remembered as a show that challenged audiences with its attention to detail and subtlety. It helped spark a rush of great cable series, which includes sibling AMC shows Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. Thanks to its stylish look and note-perfect casting, the show also moved into the pop culture conversation, touching lots of people who, despite having never watched a moment of the series, may still know Don Draper's name. 
 
 The show's biggest blind spot, curiously, has always been centered on race. It still mystifies me that a cable channel could spend eight years exploring the lives of characters throughout the 1960s and mostly disregard events that involved the civil rights movement, the end of segregation, the establishment of voting rights for black people or the end of laws against interracial marriage. 
 
 Weiner has said that the characters he focuses on in Mad Men are the type of people who wouldn't be closely connected to black people or those issues. But several writers have pointed out there were black people involved in advertising in New York during the '60s and '70s. In fact, a black man, Billy Davis, is credited as co-writer on the song "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony)," which provided the soundtrack for the Coke campaign Don is supposed to have invented. 
 
 I concluded a long time ago that Weiner simply didn't want to write about race much on Mad Men — which is a shame, because it makes the show feel a little less real and a little less relevant than it could have. 
 
 It's a truism that period pieces are often as much about the time in which they are made as the time they represent. What Mad Men did well was to communicate our modern discomfort with the future, our continuing struggles with sexism and how difficult it can be to change, even when you know you must. 
 
 That last point plagued Don Draper, who couldn't help using his midlife crisis as research for his next big idea in the finale — the same way he chatted up a black waiter in the show's pilot to figure out how to sell Lucky Strike cigarettes. 
 
 Even with all the great dramas now on TV, I think Mad Men will be missed.
– Mad Men will be back with creator Matthew Weiner at the helm for two more seasons and possibly a third. After tough negotiations, Weiner has signed a deal with AMC and Lionsgate believed to be worth around $30 million, reports the New York Times. The cable hit's fifth season will begin in early 2012. The deal ensures a sixth season and has an option for a seventh, which Weiner says he expects will be the last. "That’s how long the show is," he says. "I'm just thrilled I get to finish it." "I'm not Don Draper, I don't have the stomach for this," Weiner—who was under pressure to cut costs—said of the negotiations. He says the new contract includes a stipulation that cast members will only be cut for creative reasons, not financial ones. "The cast will be intact and people's characters will only leave the story if it suits the story creatively," he tells the Los Angeles Times.