In the past two seasons, NBC has canceled a total of five series-two at the end of 2023-24 and three in 2022-2023.
He equaled this total on Friday, reducing five shows in the largest purge of a single season in his scripted range since the 2020-21 season (not counting the finals of the pre-announced series). Comedies Lopez against Lopez And Night court and dramas Found, the irrational And Suitable have all been rebuilt (however Night court Producer Warner Bros. said she will try to find a new house for the show). First year dramas Brilliant spirit,, Big point Garden Society And The Hunting Day were still in limbo on Friday afternoon; NBC will announce its 2025-26 calendar on Monday, before its initial presentation.
While NBC has been slow to swing the cancellation ax in recent years, the wave of cuts on Friday is not a huge surprise. In fact, Network has a few billion reasons to bring back its scripted production next season – it is when the new NBC Sports NBA agreement undertakes, and NBC should largely devote at least a full night of Prime Time during the week to game emissions as part of its annual annual rights package of $ 2.5 billion.
The difference between the season in the season in the number of scripted shows will be notable. At the time of publication, NBC had only six hours of scripted programming locked up for next fall, after having renewed its three Chicago dramas, two Law and order First -year series and comedies HAPPY PLACE And St. Denis Medical. It is likely that at least a series of bubbles will obtain a renewal of the 11th hour, so call it eight hours of script on the antenna in the fall. NBC has also renewed The voice For a 28th season in the fall, which will take two or three more hours (depending on whether it is broadcast one or two nights). This is 11 hours of entertainment programming, exactly half of the real estate during prospective hours of NBC.
At the start of the current season, however, NBC had 1 pm of entertainment programming in prime time – from Monday to Thursday and the first hour of Friday evenings, with the rest of the week filled by Friday Reference And university and NFL football on weekends. In the spring, this total went at 3 p.m. for most weeks while entertainment programming took over Sunday evening.
With the reduction of entertainment hours, NBC bets that it can draw a similar or wider audience with NBA games than with canceled emissions. And, to be fair, it could be a good bet: the matches of the NBA regular season were on average 1.53 million viewers on ABC, ESPN and TNT in 2024-25 (in all time periods), with the vast majority of those on the cable. The aisle of seven ABC games of Saturday matches during prime time from January, although Mars attracted just under 3 million viewers; This could be a more suitable benchmark for NBC prime time television next season (these matches will also broadcast on Peacock).
According to Nielsen, none of the five NBC programs canceled an average of 2.2 million viewers on the same day. Find And The irrational Profected reasonably well in streaming and other delayed views, but the vast majority of NBA viewers next season will watch the games live, allowing NBC to charge higher announcements because marketing specialists know that their advertisements have a higher probability of being seen by most of the public.
This does not make the cuts scripted on Friday less painful for the crews and moldings of the canceled series. But with the huge NBC investment in the NBA, the shoe (basketball) was always likely to decrease.
