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After the steady stream of new series pickups and renewals over the past five days, NBC cleaned house, canceling the bubble series that had not been renewed yet and passing on the pilots that had not been picked up to series yet. The series getting axed officially include comedies Are You There, Chelsea, BFF and Bent as well as drama Awake, which showed some spunk with a ratings increase last night. It proved to be a case of too little too late.
EXCLUSIVE: Bent star David Walton has been tapped as the male lead opposite JoAnna Garcia in CBS’ untitled Greg Malins/Greg Berlanti multi-camera comedy pilot. He replaces Bryan Greenberg, who was originally cast in the role but exited after yesterday’s … Read More »
After Alcatraz on Monday, two more freshman shows on the bubble — comedies Whitney and Are You There, Chelsea – had their finales last night. Like Alcatraz, both NBC series finished their freshman runs on a low note: Whitney (1.5/5 in adults 18-49) was down a tenth (6%) from last week, while Chelsea (1.2/4) was down 14%. NBC didn’t do midseason comedy Bent any favors with its scheduling of back-to-back episodes in the low-trafficked Wednesday 9 PM slot. In its second week, the romantic comedy starring Amanda Peet and David Walton (0.9/3 at 9 PM, 0.8/2 at 9:30 PM) kept steady with its low premiere, down a tenth at 9 PM and even at 9:30 PM. Rock Center With Brian Williams (0.8/2) was up a tenth. Read More »
CBS announced its finale dates today, and the last of them are on May 17, a full week before the end of the broadcast season and the end of the May sweeps. This is not the first time the network has done this — it similarly wrapped things up on the series side a week early the last couple of years. With sweep months losing their importance in the era of People Meters, the networks are being more strategic about scheduling their series. “You have a limited number of original episodes for the season, and they’re worth more in November, December, January, February or even March then they are in May when HUT levels are lower,” one observer said. Airing originals in earlier months of the season provides “more bang for your buck” and helps maximize the ratings for each original episode, the observer said. Read More »
NBC’s midseason comedy Bent landed some of the best reviews for a new comedy this season. Unfortunately, that will be little consolation to the show’s producers after the romantic comedy starring Amanda Peet and David Walton premiered to dismal ratings last night: 1.0/3 in adults 18-49 and 2.82 million total viewers at 9 PM and 0.9/2, 2.42 million at 9:30 PM to rank as NBC’s lowest-rated in-season comedy debut ever — down from the quickly yanked The Paul Reiser Show (1.1/3) last spring. And that is with ABC’s Modern Family in repeat last night. NBC launched Bent with little promotion in one of the most underperforming time slots on the schedule. (In its ratings notes this morning, NBC points out that Bent delivered the network’s best demo rating in the 9-9:30 PM period in a month and a half.) Then NBC couldn’t find a show to pair Bent with, running it instead in a weird, burnoff-like pattern of back-to-back episodes. Since the show had a short, six-episode order to begin with, that airing pattern pretty much eliminates word-of-mouth as Bent will be over in three weeks, leaving no time for new viewers to discover it. Still, Bent was not the lowest-rated NBC show last night — that dubious distinction goes to Rock Center With Brian Williams (0.7/2) at 10 PM, which was actually up 17% (a tenth) from last week’s series low. NBC’s 8-9 PM comedies rebounded from their losses last week — Whitney (1.6/5) was up 14%, and Are You There, Chelsea (1.4/4) was up 27%. Read More »
NBC will make more changes to its Wednesday and Thursday lineups in the spring, when it will bring back cult favorite Community and introduce the remaining three unscheduled midseason series — comedies Bent and Best Friends Forever and the unscripted Betty White’s Off Their Rockers, which received solid sampling after the network’s Betty White birthday special last month. The addition of the three new series will result in a lot of time-slot sharing and no repeats, with NBC touting its spring schedule as featuring the highest percentage of original programs in the network’s history with only with only 13 total hours of repeat programming from Sunday to Friday through mid-May.
Community will return to its Thursday 8 PM slot March 15, ending the experiment with 30 Rock in the half-hour. 30 Rock will slide to the more-suitable 8:30-9 PM slot, bumping Parks And Recreation, which will take a break, returning to wrap its season April 19 in the post-Office 9:30 PM slot after Up All Night finishes its 24-episode original first-season run. Read More »
NBC ordered six new comedy series this upfront, more than any other network. But the orders for two of its three midseason half-hours, romantic comedy Bent and BFFs (form. Parham/St. Clair), are for six episodes each. Pickups for all new broadcast series — fall or midseason — are usually for … Read More »
NBC Picks Up ‘Awake,’ ‘Playboy’ & ‘Grimm’
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UPDATE: I hear NBC just picked up two more comedy pilots: romantic comedy Bent, starring Amanda Peet … Read More »
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