NBC really isn't helping themselves.

I dunno, I kinda respect them for their current "quality television" mandate. It seems like they genuinely believe that if they build it, people will come. Sure they've cancelled the odd good show, but none that were especially brilliant. That they're giving 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights another chance despite having low ratings shows that they have a genuine respect for some of their shows, and a belief that audiences will eventually have the same.

But they're setting themselves up for even more failure than last year. Tv still is a business. And they're still going to bomb.

Yeah, maybe, but so what? It's about time one of the majors stood up for shows they believe in, rather than pander to the masses with dreck. And if it continues to result in shows like Heroes, The Office, 30 Rock, etc, then I think that audiences eventually will come back. And even if they aren't massive successes, they'll still have the affluent viewer marketing love, and they'll have us, the fans, eating out of the palm of their hand.

I really don't like their schedule at all.

The only new pilots they have that sound remotely appealing are Chuck (just because I like that guy from Less Than Perfect) and Lipstick Jungle, which is in an annoying time slot and doesn't even premiere until January.

All is not as it seems. Some of those shows that don't have great regular ratings do have great 18-49 ratings. The Office for example regularly beat survivor and Ugly Betty in that demographic rating which is the one the advertisers pay attention to. I don't know how it is for FNL or 30 Rock but I'm saying the regular ratings don't tell the whole story.

Anyway by retaining some quality shows, that's how they got out of the doldrums last decade. Seinfeld had crappy ratings for the first year or two. Cheers in the 80s was a flop for over a year before it caught on.

If NBC had four or five hits pulling in 15-25 million viewers a week, Friday Night Lights wouldn't have lasted three weeks. That's not a knock on FNL, it's just the truth.

Let's count that as a blessing then.

Oh yes it's definitely the truth, X. It's usually the low rated network that takes the risks like that, from what I've seen.

Also I wonder if DVD plays a role these days where if a show has a devoted following they figure they're going to sell some DVDs.

I also don't understand why NBC is so insistent on trying to murder poor Medium.

It actually used to be a pretty solid hit in its original Mondays at 10 PM slot, but they keep putting it in the worst time slots imaginable for some bizarre reason. This past season, it went up against Lost. Now they're putting it on against Desperate Housewives? What are they thinking?

Well, DVDs don't benefit the network. They benefit the studio. That's why ABC would've picked up Scrubs if NBC didn't. Scrubs is produced by Paramount, which is under the same umbrella as ABC. So for NBC, shows that sell well that are produced by Universal may be picked up despite poor ratings.

I'm not sure if I like this or not. I'm glad the lineup is the same, but if 30 Rock doesn't find an audience, will that hurt The Office? I just think 30 Rock and Scrubs should be on Tuesday - 30 Rock so that it has a chance to break out, and Scrubs so that it can be seen in it's final year.

I don't know if putting The Office up against CSI + Grey's is a smart move. I suppose it could work as counter-programming, but it might lose even more viewers. I dunno....

I, too, have to commend NBC for their standards of quality, however loose you might consider those to be.

NBC will eventually climb out of this slump. Think about where ABC was four years ago.

Shakeup at NBC

Kevin Reilly, the guy who kept The Office, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights on the air despite low initial ratings, has been ousted.

His replacement is Ben Silverman who will also have more power apparently than Reilly had. Silverman is one of the producers of The Office US version and also helped develop Ugly Betty.

More here

Fuck.

Well, he can't make any changes in what has been kept already, right? And I think NBC really does need someone to do some major work on the schedule.

Well, at least he's a producer on The Office.

His first change: no more supersized episodes. According to an article on zap2it.

Seems fair enough. Ironically, whole supersized thing was a gimmick introduced by Jeff Zucker, who is now Silverman's boss.