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UPDATED: It looks like NBC‘s 30 Rock will be back for a likely abbreviated seventh and final season. I hear the Emmy-winning comedy has closed deals with its key high-level writers to return for what is expected to be a final season of 13-14 episodes. Among those who have signed on to go back are co-executive producers Jack Burditt and Josh Siegal & Dylan Morgan. As for NBC’s other bubble comedies, newbie Whitney does not appear likely to return. Fellow freshman Up All Night has been looking better, but its executive producer Jon Pollack just moved to NBC’s newly picked up comedy series Go On as a co-executive producer. Is this a bad sign for the future of the family/workplace comedy starring Christina Applegate or just a case of staff turnover? (UPDATE: It looks like it’s the latter — I hear that the show is actively looking for a new co-showrunner to replace Pollack, an indication that NBC intends to renew the freshman comedy.) Meanwhile, veterans Community and Parks And Recreation both are in the running, with Parks’ renewal considered likely. I hear that, like 30 Rock, all returning NBC comedy series are likely to get short orders. That would save some coin and allow NBC to pick up more new comedies.
Related: ‘New Normal’, ‘Revolution’ & ‘Save Me’ Picked Up To Series At NBC
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While P&R is great it is so heavily arced for story it’s not as attractive a syndication property as most multi-cams because episodes have to run in order.
Up All Night is an example of what got NBC in the situation it is in. It started well, but because of it’s narrow premise, it fell flat as writers quickly ran out of ideas. Whitney, on the other hand, is able to grow. So, NBC would be stupid to pick Up All Night up over Whitney. Whitney held itself up on Wednesdays while Up All Night couldn’t even hold itself up between The Office and a decent premiere of Awake (which later fell flat). Up All Night will only continue to fail.
A 30 Rock final season renewal will be good for the network. While its ratings are low, it doesn’t want to alienate what viewers it already has. The same can go for Community. Parks will be back without question as it’s NBC’s second highest rated comedy. Why on earth would NBC cancel it?
The NBC Comedy Dept needs an overhaul. PERFECT COUPLES was a great show (far better than BENT). 30 ROCK and PARKS & REC are still great. THE OFFICE is horrible.
All this “no one watches Community/Parks and Rec/30 Rock” stuff needs to stop. The numbers constantly quoted comes from the Nielsen Ratings which come from an extremely small sample of households with special tracking boxes installed. It doesn’t taken into account DVR’d shows or online watches (Hulu etc) and these shows are popular with a demographic that doesn’t have the time or frankly, desire to sit down every week at a set time to watch television.
My friends and I all adore these shows, but I can’t remember the last time I watched one of them live until this season of Community (just in some futile effort to show NBC I care). Using the Nielsen ratings as a measure of a show’s health is ridiculous and I don’t understand why in 2012 networks still use it.
Thank you for pointing that out, Martin. NBC comedies do not have traditional viewers. Nielsen system needs to be updated.
No network cares about live ratings unless its an award show or sports, the official numbers are always Live + Same Day (because of DVRs) and Live + 7 day numbers matter as well. Hulu and online get measured but you’re right that they rarely get taken into account.
When Community came back from its hiatus there was this spike in the ratings because the stars and fans encouraged people who usually watch online to just watch it on tv! and after averaging a 1.7 a18-49 rating all season, that episode on march 15th was a 2.2 L+SD A18-49 which was amazing. and then the next week it went right back down when all those people went back to watching online or days later. it’s frustrating.
Networks will start giving greater weight to streaming just as soon as it brings in the same advertising rates, and not before. (Aside from the fact that, even when you add in all streaming and DVR viewers, their ratings still suck — those other shows with the higher ratings also have some DVR and streaming viewers, too. Not as many, but they don’t need as many with the kind of head start their live numbers give them to still be doing better.)
I don’t understand these shortened orders. If any show is getting a short order it should be The Office, which is limping to the finish line. P&R, Community, and 30 Rock are all still on top of their game creatively, though. They may not be huge ratings winners, but they’re not doing any worse than The Office right now, so why not give them full seasons? Community, in particular, may be low rated, but I think it’s going to be NBC’s Arrested Development and in a few years people will wonder why no one watched it when it was actually on.
Where were you when these 3 million people caused havoc after Community was put on hiatus. And need I remind you that Nielsen ratings system is fairly outdated? It DOES NOT represent the entire tv watching population.
Community’s poor ratings can easily be attributed to stiff competition at that timeslot (big bang and American idol).
Also, don’t compare community and parks to the likes of Whitney. It’s like comparing fudge to shit.
maybe but there is some funny shit… there’s never funny fudge.
Its really sad that people don’t like great comedy. The top 4 comedies on tv today Community, Parks, Office, and 30 Rock are all going to be off the air. I know NBC would love to keep those 4 shows but shamefully the ratings aren’t there.
SHAME ON YOU AMERICA.
Whitney, the Chelsea show and Up All Night are all finished at NBC…anything that has that stigmatism of Bromstad and Zucker attached to it should be shown the door as they need fresher and more entertaining shows for them to get out of the 4th place mess they’re in right now. 30 Rock will be a shortened season but at least a) they get renewed and b) they can finish up their show properly and c) no more Alec Baldwin on the TV screen.
Parks needs 20 episodes to reach 88.
Community needs 17 episodes to reach 88.
Give them both their final seasons solely consisting of the amount of episodes they need. I’m a fan of the latter, but I’ll be happy with four seasons and a graduation. Just give these dedicated fan bases their series finales and be done with them. Simple as that. And move them to horrible Friday or Saturday slots. Don’t be stupid and launch new comedies out of them!
Up All Night needs to go. The show never found its tone and wasted its talent. Lorne Michaels or not, the show was averaging under 3 million viewers and still needs 64 episodes for syndication (3 seasons). It’s not worth it. Same for Whitney and every other comedy not mentioned above.
As far as The Office goes, I don’t even think anyone is signed to return yet, right? And NBC is insisting on going through with Office’s own ‘Joey’ with Rainn Wilson and The Farm. Bad idea! Give the original series a final season like you’re likely doing for the other 3 (30, Parks and Community), and be done with them. Even if your new comedies don’t take off, you can’t keep using these as safeties. They aren’t safe! Creatively brilliant but dead.
What you said.
#FourSeasonsAndAProperSeriesFinale anyone?
Whitney is the only show I watched on NBC. I still watch the reruns on my DVR and laugh.
Yeah I know a lot of people who watch Whitney and it makes them laugh so hard. NBC has something with this show if they stay patient with it.
FULL SEASONS FOR ALL!!!!
Why do the NBC brass keep hiring the same writers? Their shows range from uneven/occasionally great (Community, Parks & Rec) to haven’t been good in years/borderline terrible (The Office, 30 Rock) to holy shit is that unwatchable, how bad can network television get (Whitney, Up All Night, Chelsea, Free Agents, Perfect Couples, Friends with Benefits, Outsourced, Love Bites, Paul Reiser Show etc etc etc)
And yet they seem to keep hiring the same writers. Maybe this year’s crop will be better. (Doubtful)
Two things to take into account with NBC’s bubble shows.
1) If it’s produced by Universal and it’s close to syndication, it’s definitely coming back.
2) Don’t just look at overall 18-49 ratings… you have to look at the audience makeup. Those critically-acclaimed NBC single camera comedies have likely more affluent audiences than Whitney did, and NBC can (and likely does) charge a higher ad rate.
Very, very good points.
That’s one reason why I have been skeptical of those who say that NBC will almost certainly cancel “Up All Night.” It’s doing decently in the ratings–at the very least, no worse than any other NBC show–but it also has a great cast pedigree and NBC Universal and Lorne Michael’s fingerprints all over it. That’s gotta count for something. It’s also just one year old, so while it might never grow into a hit show, it’s got more potential to do that than many of the other shows in question.
Whitney is the only NBC that’s worth saving for next year. It’s the only one with potential to grow. The rest are just losers that nobody will watch just like Bent and BFFs.
community is WWWAAY better than big bang theory people just arent ready to know when to laugh on their own its too much work for idiot box time half the countrys watching jersey shore for gods sakes plus ratings have proven they mean nothing anyway how many awards has 30 rock won? how many great shows have been cancelled only to sell crazy dvds and do great on other channels? it takes most average people time to recognize true quality and often for the really good stuff it can be too late
Does anyone know how the life of these shows has been on DVD? I’ve seen every episode of 30 Rock, Parks & Rec, and Community — except for this season, because I buy every DVD season set when they come out. The three of these are far and away my favorite shows on television, but I worry that my method of supporting them isn’t as visible when renewal time comes around.
Some people seem to be of the delusion that if they think a show is good, it’s a surefire renewal. Here’s a headline for you: Rock and Community get terrible ratings, that have now declined to a financially non-viable level.
You think these shows are great, and I think these shows are great, but it doesn’t really matter, nor does it matter whether the Nielsen system is accurate. Ratings are what advertisers care about, and Nielsen is who they get their ratings from, accurate or not.
I expected that if 30 Rock was renewed, it would be for a short, final season. As for Community and Parks, I expect NBC will order enough episodes for syndication either now, or later if they don’t intend to renew.
As for the Community fans. Isn’t Jeff’s community college degree supposed to take place over the course of four years, anyway? If anything it would make sense for the show to enter into the same deal as Rock.
Sorry to be dropping truth bombs on you all, and for the record I too think it’s a crying shame more people don’t watch these shows.
Anyway, none of this is confirmed yet. Could be that none of it is true.
Surprise surprise sur. . .prise!!!! NBC actually made a decision. Right or wrong, they made a decision. They’re the most useless entertainment entity out there.
Community and Parks and Recreation need full seasons.
It’s just because I love these two creative, original and funny comedies so much, it’s also because it’s Math 101 :
Community needs 17 episodes to reach the 88-episode limit for $yndication (starting in September 2013 on Comedy Central), Parks and Rec needs 20 episodes. Ordering shorter seasons for both those shows just doesn’t make any sense monetarily speaking.
I understand them renewing 30 Rock for a final season, I’d have preferred 22 episodes instead of 14, but it’s fine, the show had a nice run. However I won’t accept 14 episodes for Community or Parks and Rec, the latter being the obvious successor to The Office in the 9pm time slot.
Maybe NBC won’t dare to end The Office this season considering that they will end 30 Rock, but if The Office ends after its 10th season in May 2014, I expect Parks and Recreation to take over.
I’m not fooling myself in expecting that my beloved Community will follow the same path, but if NBC is full of nice people they will renew the show for a full final season (I’d ask for 25 episodes like season 1, but 22 episodes would be very nice already), which will help them smooth the deal with Comedy Central. Let the Human Beings have that.
People were pretty upset when the show was on hiatus for 3 months, a shortened season isn’t the solution. Let us have a full Senior Year, let the Greendale Seven graduate, let them/us have closure. We won’t have six seasons and a movie, but 4 full seasons, 92-96 episodes of inventive comedy gold that will be remembered for years to come is already great.
Ratings shouldn’t matter much to the network if they’re also the producer of the show. What should matter more is the strength of the following the show has. If it has a devoted, cult following, as Community and Parks and Recreation does, the producer (even if they’re the network & not making enough ad money on the first-runs) should want to produce full seasons…which will increase the value of their DVD/BluRay sales and streaming/iTunes deals.
As talented as Whitney may really be, the show looks like it is “shot in a box”. There doesn’t appear to be any outside world. I’d say the same for Zooey Deschanel’s show on FOX. Both shows need to reach out in terms of scope and character development.
All the above IMHO. Thanks!
I really do hope Community is renewed. After the events of the last few months it would be great to see a 4th season, whether it’s for 13, 17 or 22 episodes. But I’ll stand my ground and say it.. six seasons and a movie! Come on NBC, don’t Britta it.
NBC is a flippin’ joke. Seriously, they’re gonna screw over their successes (for lake of a better word) for these new comedies like Save Me and Animal Practice, which will be the Free Agents and BFF of the season. THEY WILL DIE, so why kill shows that could live? No wonder NBC is going under when they’re making stupid decisions like this!!!
Love Community, but all the fans saying “six seasons and a movie” don’t half annoy me. Jeff’s degree only goes four years, so really you ought to be looking at four seasons… and no movie.