The first season of the American dramedy television series Ugly Betty began airing on September 28, 2006 and concluded on May 17, 2007. In addition to the twenty-three regular episodes in season one, a special, "The Beautiful World of Ugly Betty", was aired on April 12, 2007. Another special, which was a half-hour update recapping the first ten episodes, aired during the month of January 2007 on local ABC affiliates and various cable networks. Being produced in Los Angeles, the success of the season would lead to the production of the show's second season.

The second season of the American dramedy television series Ugly Betty started on September 27, 2007 in the United States and Canada and including a long, mid-season hiatus ran until May 22, 2008. The second part of the season began airing April 24, 2008. Due to the fan base gained in the UK, Channel 4 bought the UK rights to Season 2 so they could begin airing it only a week later than the USA. Due to the Writer's Strike of 2007, Ugly Betty went on a hiatus in the UK after the airing of episode "Bananas for Betty". Channel 4 announced that Ugly Betty would return towards the end of 2008 and when it returned on 5 September 2008, received 2.93 million viewers, according to overnight figures, which is a strong figure for Channel 4. The season would be the last season to be produced in Los Angeles before the show confirmed that it will move to New York City to complement the show's setting in the next and last seasons.

The third season of the American dramedy television series Ugly Betty was confirmed in the ABC lineup, which was picked up for a full season on February 11, 2008. The season premiere aired on September 25, 2008 and ended with a special double-episode on May 21, 2009. In Australia, Season 3 premiered on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 7:30 pm EDT. This took place as one of the first exclusive premieres on the new digital channel 7TWO, after over two years of erratic screening of the first two seasons on the Seven Network. In South Africa, Season 3 premiered on Tuesday January 13, 2009 in its normal 7:30.P.M CAT timeslot. Season 3 premiered in the UK on Channel 4 on Wednesday June 24, 2009 in the 10:00.P.M. slot, after Big Brother. It changed from Wednesdays to Mondays from Monday October 12, 2009. Episodes finished airing December 2, 2009. The season would be the first to be produced in the show's setting, New York City in an attempt to take advantage of a credit change. However, the move would have side-effects as several cast and crew members prefer to stay in Los Angeles where the first two seasons were produced which resulted in contributing less onto the show. For example, Ashley Jensen, who plays Christina McKinney, opted to stay in Los Angeles and eventually left the show.

The fourth and final season of the American comedy-drama television series Ugly Betty was confirmed in the ABC lineup, which was picked up for a full season on April 23, 2009. The season premiered on October 16, 2009 and ended with the series finale on April 14, 2010. Outside the United States, Season 4 began airing on digital channel 7TWO on Tuesdays at 7:30pm from April 13, 2010 in Australia. It also began airing in the UK on Wednesday August 11, at 9 pm. Unlike the previous 3 seasons, Ugly Betty is now being shown on the digital channel E4, while the repeat telecast can be watched on Channel 4 on the weekend. This move is said to be due to the decline in ratings of the previous season which was shown on Channel 4. Season 4 completed its 20-episode run by Wednesday December 22, 2010. The season had been shifted to the Friday night death slot and ratings for the first 8 episodes were extremely low. On December 2, 2009, ABC confirmed that Ugly Betty would be moving to Wednesday nights after Christmas 2009, due to Eastwick's cancellation. However, ratings did not improve and ABC lowered the episode count from an original 22 ordered to just 20. On January 27, 2010, ABC announced the show would not be brought back for a fifth season.