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UPDATED: NBC is giving new comedy series Up All Night and Whitney a major vote of confidence with early full-season pickups. Meanwhile, as we indicated in the ratings story earlier this morning, low-rated new drama The Playboy Club has become the first new series to be canceled this fall. The 1960s drama is being pulled from the schedule effective immediately and will be replaced by Brian Williams’ new primetime newsmagazine, Rock Center With Brian Williams, which will premiere October 31. For the next three weeks, NBC will air repeats of its other struggling new drama, the well-received Prime Suspect, in the Monday 10 PM 
hour for additional sampling, while keeping originals on Thursday. “We made comedy an important goal for us this season and I’m very pleased to be making full-season commitments to both Whitney and Up All Night,” NBC chairman Bob Greenblatt said. “We’re thrilled with the creative direction of both shows as well as the potential for them to continue to build loyal audiences over the coming months.”
While not breakout hits of the size of Fox’s New Girl or CBS’ 2 Broke Girls, Up All Night and Whitney have been solid in their first couple of weeks, especially compared to the performance of NBC’s new drama series. The pickup of Whitney, which will be joined shortly by a full-season order for 2 Broke Girls at CBS, will give Whitney Cummings, who created and stars in Whitney and co-created 2 Broke Girls, two successful new shows this fall. As for Playboy, the series was expected to get the ax last week after its low-rated premiere was followed by a Week 2 decline, but Greenblatt gave the period drama another shot. Unfortunately, the series dropped again last night to a 1.2 demo rating despite its lead-in actually improving a bit. Rock Center, originally targeted for midseason, marks the first new NBC News primetime program launch in nearly 20 years. Joining Williams on the show are Harry Smith, Kate Snow and NBC News’ Meredith Vieira, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, Richard Engel, Matt Lauer and Ann Curry. “Smart, original and occasionally irreverent, we hope it will become a destination for viewers looking for something special,” NBC News president Steve Capus said.
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Bob Greenblatt must have NOTHING in the pipeline to replace Whitney, who is not funny and is downright annoying, with a heavy dose of smirking at how wonderful that show is. I guess asking viewers and advertisers to approve that mess was not on his radar.
It’s not that at all. It doesn’t matter how unfunny Whitney is, it gets better ratings than the entire rest of their line-up. Now, maybe if it slumps to Parks & Rec territory, he starts reconsidering, but until such a time, it stays in the slot that should go to another show.
It’s not inconceivable that Whitney ratings will continue to drop and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if viewers are down another 15-20% this week. I expect it to fall below both Community and Parks and Rec by November. You’d think NBC would wait at least 3-4 weeks to make sure the ratings have stabilized before making this call.
If the ratings continue to drop they should at least switch Parks & Rec and Whitney. Parks & Rec did much better after The Office than it’s doing with Community as a lead-in. Community is fun to watch if you’re a TV writer, but with its ratings I don’t know how it made it to a third season.
love whitney. i’m a girl. love it!!!!
Let’s not forget the HORRID laugh track.
yeah, because two and half men doesn’t have a horrible laugh track. How about Big bang theory, HIMYM, Mike and Molly. They all have horrible laugh tracks with not very funny scripts. Whitney is certainly no worse.
Actually, Whitney is much much worse.
Big Bang Theory and Mike and Molly are actually live studio audiences. I’m sure they pad it, but I saw a taping and the laughter was very loud for BBT. Because it’s actually a funny show. Unlike Whitney.
Two and a half men has a live studio audience as well. Although the new season isn’t that funny anymore so they’ll probably have to get a laughtrack soon
Whitney is MUCH worse. Actually nausea-inducing.
Whitney is developing nicely and I’m fan of that show. I also love Prime Suspect.
Agree. They have nothing in the pipeline. I hope they keep FREE AGENTS for a while as I think it has real potential. Whitney??? Really???
Again Whitney was not made for Community fans it was made to bring in a different audience that they haven’t had in years. Whitney has a chance to bring those viewers in the future.
How? With its stilted jokes, ridiculous remise and no stakes whatsoever? Even the sets and direction are bad. I’d rather they give smart single-cam comedies like FREE AGENTS a chance instead of catering to the lowest common denominator.
Because they don’t shit in the ratings dumbass!
THAT’S WHY THERE’S CABLE, DUDE!
I will miss my Bunnies. It’s not even bunny. It’s partly cloudy, partly bunny. My nose is bunny.
Amber Heard and especially Laura Benanti deserved a better show. Eddie Cibriani and David Krumholtz, not so much.
WEll…that didn’t take long…
You go Gloria Steinem!
SHOUTING OUT MY DELIGHT THAT ‘THE PLAYBOY CLUB’ HAS BEEN CANCELLED. WATCHED ABOUT 10 MINUTES OF IT, LAST NIGHT, AND WAS SICKENED. I WAS A BUNNY IN BOTH THE CHICAGO AND NYC CLUBS IN THE EARLY 60S AND THIS WAS NOTHING LIKE THE REALITY OF WHAT WE LIVED THRU.
what’s your number?
Greenblatt loved Playboy so much it was the first show he picked up. Dude loved it.
WHITNEY? WHITNEY????
ARE YOU KIDDING?!?!?
THAT SHOW IS SUCH AN EMBARRASSMENT IT’S UPSETTING TO ME.
It will end the season under a 2/share.
But I suppose they have nothing else to stick in that time slot.
I wish Brandon Tartikoff didn’t die.
-RnsW
Me too. He had taste and convictions. Although he didn’t love St. Elsewhere and it was low in the ratings. His wife convinced him to stay with it. It ran years and won a boat load of Emmys.
He never lost touch with what it felt like to watch and love TV.
uhh and you must be another hater guy. (aka, jealous). i love it. i’m a girl
Why do you keep writing ‘I’m a girl’ all over the comment section. It makes no difference.
And show some self respect, I call myself I ‘woman’, not a ‘girl’.
Whitney is horrible, she’s NOT funny and the show is hard to watch. Have to say I enjoyed Playboy, its far better than Pan Am (which is the same show IMHO)and I’m sorry to see it go.
‘Playboy’ had it all backwards.
The story itself was strictly chick flick, turning off men; but its primary appeal was to men, and had to turn off women with its dated sexism.
I unfortunately have to agree. Although I liked the show (probably because I’m a girl
Playboy didn’t help itself with the women by having a cheating Eddie Cibrian in a lead. Lots of women loathe him & LeAnn Rimes.
Disappointed about THE PLAYBOY CLUB. I thought it was a really engaging soap. WHITNEY is almost unwatchable. I don’t think as a performer she appeals to men or women. Just kind of annoying. UP ALL NIGHT is merely okay. Given all of the big talents involved, its mediocrity is alarming.
So is Playboy Club pulled as of next week? Or will it limp along until the end of the month when ROCK CENTER takes over?
Too bad about THE PLAYBOY CLUB getting the ax. I thought the show had great potential, but not as Network Fare. This would have played great on HBO, Stars,Showtime or even one of the other cable channels where the show would have been less censored and have had more of an erotic edge. Social commentary aside, it is the erotic undercurrent that made the clubs and PLAYBOY successful anyway. I think that just through the nature of Network sensibilities the show was turned into MAD MEN lite. Too Bad. A really missed opportunity. Even a feature could have faired well.
I agree. On a cable channel it could have been a hit, but even as Mad Men lite it was watchable, which is more than I can say for WHITNEY.
Eh. Maybe the IDEA of a show set in the Playboy Club could have been a hit on a cable channel, but THIS show, with THIS execution would never be a hit anywhere.
Playboy represents one thing: sex. Sophisticated, 60′s-hipster sex, yes, but SEX. This show was completely sexless. It was hurried, it didn’t set anything up, the characters and storylines were dull, and if you’re going to deal with the idea of forcing women into sexy costumes to serve drinks for men, then deal with it honestly… don’t monkey about and pretend that it’s female empowerment. It’s not, it’s putting on a skimpy costume and selling liquor to drunken idiots who want to stare at women’s pudenda. Pretending that it was the forefront of the sexual revolution is an insult to all the women of the 40′s who actually broke that revolution wide open and the women of the 70′s who changed the world forever.
Also, just on a craft note, EVERY EPISODE felt like it was a “bottle episode” — I realize that you spent a fortune on the sets and all, but seriously, find somewhere else to go every once in a while. Mad Men works because they’re constantly pulling you out of the office into other locations… if every episode was set entirely inside the agency set, you’d go mad eventually and not even understand why. That’s what the Playboy Club was like. 3 sets: Cibrian’s apartment, Bunny House, Playboy Club, lather rinse repeat. Bleh.
agreed…HBO was the path this bunny shoulda hopped down
So what will replace the Playboy Club for the next 3 weeks?
In article it says that prime suspect will air rerun in the spot for the next three weeks.
A chimp smelling his finger and falling out of a tree. It’s HUGE on YouTube!
NBC fail, again
Despite the title, I think it will be interesting to see the new newsmagazine.
So, this is the end of Amber Heard and her nudity clauses…
The only good thing about Whitney getting a full season pickup is that it will prevent the unfunny Whitney Cummings from writing for “2 Broke Girls”, which I am kind of liking. The writing is getting better with each episode and Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs are both really good.
Um you do realize Whitney writes those episodes that you like so much right? Try thinking before you open up your mouth next time.
Um, no she doesn’t. She ‘consults’ on 2 broke.
Everybody in the room says she has zero input on those episodes and although she gives notes on occasion, even the EPs see no value to her.
Whitney doesn’t write those. A full time actress on a show cannot be in a writers room on a different show. Get your head out of your ass.
hahahaa!!! haters. way to put him in his place
We are definitely on the same wave length. My biggest fear after watching the Whitney pilot was that she’d turn her attention to 2BG once her show was promptly canceled. Now I’m just glad that 2 Broke Girls is safe and Whitney can go ahead and die a slow death on NBC without ruining the CBS show with her ‘comedy.’
look at all the unemployed jealous male comedy writers going nuts! haters
I write on a show with 13 other employed, successful writers. Whenever somebody pitches a lousy joke we say “Whitney” which has become synonymous with “hack joke.”
I promise you it’s not men and it’s not unemployed people. In fact this seems like an ideal show for underachievers.
If you think TWO BROKE GIRLS is anything but atrocious I’m afraid I can’t put stock in anything you say. Masturbation, vagina and sh*t jokes do not make a good comedy show.
Whitney… ridiculous. Desperation. The show will sink to oblivion. It’s terrible – and Greenblatt should be careful about praising stuff that, he must know, is truly horrible.
Understand Up All Night – it showed some life in a terrible time slot. They should put it where Whitney is and give it a small shot.
So far – NBC is a bust under Greenblatt. Won’t turn around over night – but not even a small incremental improvement this fall season versus last.
It is unfair to blame Bob Greenblatt when most of the new shows were in development before he came to NBC. It’s not like he had a lot of good shows to choose from. Only Awake and Smash are his.
I like Bob and am rooting for him, but being a good network president isn’t just about which shows are his.
It’s about how he’s leading the place, the overall strategy, the messages he puts out. Ordering a full season of Whitney with compliments after week 2 only is the wrong message. Fine, at some point, he has no choice but to order it given how little they have in the pipeline – but why mute the compliment for “Up All Night” which shows at least some life on its own by mixing it with such an atrocious show like Whitney.
And if Awake and Smash are the big hopes – then why put them off for other shows that aren’t? Shouldn’t getting The Voice on in the fall have been an absolute demand, period? It could have happened. Shouldn’t keeping Meloni on SVU, one of the few shows that still manages to have life despite bad lead-ins, have been a priority? (Sure at other networks, you can take an old show like that for granted, but not at NBC.)
The leadership needs to be louder, more decisive, and more invigorating.
That said – he’s a smart guy and probably will have successes – or at least so I hope.
And both Awake and Smash are strong.
Awake might be a tough sell to a wide audience, but it’s beautifully written, acted and directed. It’s the kind of project that deserves to go to air based on quality. Greenblatt is right to give it a shot, and that he’s giving it a shot is a message to TV creators.
Smash is promising. Sharply done, interesting.
Funny how everyone was crapping all over PLAYBOY until it got the ax, and now they’re all, “Awwww, it was a good show, I really liked it.”
I was one of the people that actually did like it. I felt it needed some work to find its footing but I thought it was an enjoyable soap.
Glad to see “Up All Night” getting picked up – it’s easily one of my favorites of the new season, but disapointed about “Playboy Club” – it was a really unique and engaging soap…
WHITNEY WHITNEY WHITNEY!
HAHAHAHA Epic fail from the haters today. Full-season pickup when they were saying it wouldn’t make it past the second episode. Karma is a bitch isn’t it?
…and now we know Whitney’s handle. You’re still not funny Whitney.
I don’t understand why people were hating on Whitney so much anyways it wasn’t made for them it was made for a different audience that NBC hopes to bring in within the next few years for the network. Look at CBS Monday’s ratings, NBC wants that in the future.
See your point. But I guess people can only state their opinions. I think Whitney isn’t a show for most people in this town. Neither was Ghost Whisperer and it was a big hit. It’s just a shame to a lot of the people who read Deadline is all.
Whitney is hated on because of the words that come out of her mouth and her bad stand up.
and you’re a man… jealous! I LOVE Whitney’s comedy and BOTH of her shows
I bet my azz NBC will regret this decision in 3 weeks when it pulls under 2.0 rating. And there’s only one epic fail here, the show itself
Your grasp on Karma is about a sharp as your grasp on comedy.
“Playboy” as discussed previously was a program in search of a demographic. It did not belong on an over-the-air television network and with two of its stars out of the closet, it became a joke.
“Whitney” is also kinda lame as the 22 minutes of sex jokes is getting lame. The show needs a breakout supporting character to keep interest going. Where is Erkel, Alex P. Keaton, Frank Burns, Kramer,?
You’re blaming it on two of the stars being gay? Wow, you’re a great person. You’re also a complete moron.
Frankly, I didn’t have any idea that two of that show’s stars were out of the closet until YOU mentioned it. I vaguely knew Amber Heard was bisexual or whatever, but I don’t really care. I have no idea who the other out star you’re talking about it, and I don’t care. Here’s the thing, bigot: NO ONE UNDER 40 REALLY CARES. Except bigots. And there aren’t enough of them to end someone’s career or kill a good show. If Neil Patrick Harris can thrive on one of the top shows on TV playing a lecherous straight man while being an out gay actor, I think your stupid theory of what went wrong with The Playboy Club is just stupidity and bigotry exposed.
This show got cancelled because it sucked, it promised one thing to men but delivered something entirely different for women, and because the arrangement with the Playboy corporation to use the name and likenesses meant that the network -even if it were inclined to, which I doubt- couldn’t take risks with the material. This was a classic case of poor execution of weak material, and has nothing to do with girl-kissing Amber Heard and her mysterious gay co-star whose name I don’t give a shit about.
Agreed. NPH being out doesn’t at all ruin the character of Barney on HIMYM. He’s the funniest guy on that show and plays the character well.
I saved Playboy on my TiVo but when I heard it would be cancelled I decided not to watch until I heard it was. Not that it is, it frees up 3 hours of programming on my nearly full Tivo, so I am pretty happy about it!
NBC you’ve lost a viewer since you’ve canceled Playboy. Back to cable I go.
TOO BAD THAT NBC DIDN’T GIVE PLAYBOY CLUB A LITTLE MORE EPISODE BEFORE DECIDE TO END IT. IT WILL BE INTERESTED TO SEE WHAT WILL REPLACED THE PLAYBOY CLUB. IT LOOK LIKE I WILL BE EITHER LOOKING AT HAWAII FIVE-O OR CASTLE AT 10. YOUR TRULY CHARLES DAVID HASKELL
From NBC’s perspective, they lost millions of viewers by airing “Playboy” instead of something else.
Really, with ratings that bad, what could they have done?
NBC tries so hard to stay in last place and it is working for them.
I’m dying to see Grimm! Can’t they push it up? it’s premiering 10/21 so they obviously have episodes ready to go. Please please please
greenblatt: Grimm!
Picking up both Up All Night and Whitney for full-seasons was a good move and one of the two shows or both have a chance to get bigger ratings now that they have the whole to improve their audiences.
Playboy Club was disappointing but I don’t think Bob should give up on it just yet give it one more shot with a better lead-in if not just send it to cable probably where it belongs.
This week’s airing of Free Agents will determine its fait.
why can’t they push Grimm up? i don’t want to wait another month for it dammit. and now NBC has a free time slot.
Because they’re trying to fix it.
It’s horrible.
I heard GRIMM was good! I had friends who were able to get into the screening at comic-con (long line so I skipped it) and they really liked it.
Ah, yes, fanboys. Those excellent arbiters of taste.
I’m not understanding the vehement dislike for Whitney. The show does better than other NBC comedies except The Office and is on par with more successful but equally trite/predictable shows like “Mike & Molly” or “2 1/2 Men”. Whitney is not a groundbreakign amazing comedy but compared to other shows it’s certainly not some amazingly bad show that’s shocking to see on tv.
Good riddance to The Playboy Club and may this serve as a motivator to Greenblatt to hone their pilot development.
Also…how TERRIBLE is that Brian Williams show title? “Rock Center”? Seriously? It sounds like the description of a piece of candy or a location from Bedrock on the The Flintstones.
There’s NO WAY that title tested well. No way.
Watched one episode of “Whitney” and thought I was watching some cancelled pilot from ’98. Just awful. Watched half an episode of “Up All Night” after my wife got into it and yeah, surprisingly funny. Fills the Lorne Michaels niche now that “30 Rock” has gotten so bad.
But of course, nothing holds a candle to “Community” despite it kind of having an iffy first episode of the season.
And oh, yeah – best line of the season so far comes via Robert California: “There’s something about an underdog that really inspires the unexceptional.”
not as bad as the atrocious “accidentally on purpose”.
Up All Night will probably go down to a 1.5 rating and Whitney to a 1.9/2.0 which is embarrassingly bad given The Office’s lead-in. But it’s unlikely that a new show would do better.