Upfronts Preview Pt. 3c: If I Scheduled NBC for 2014-15

This is the last part of my preview of Upfronts, the yearly ritual when network executives trek to New York City to pitch their upcoming television season to advertisers. It’s basically a deadline for knowing which of your favorite shows are cancelled or renewed (but really the deadline is a week or so before Upfronts, and, in some rare cases, after Upfronts) as well as what new shows to look forward to next season.

The first part dealt with what shows have been cancelled/renewed on the 5 broadcast networks as well as prospects for the remaining shows (the fates of the vast majority of the shows have been revealed over the past 2-3 days).

The second part examined some of the pilots being considered to be picked up to series, listing the ones I find most interesting or best fits for the networks and ignoring those already picked up to series (many pilots have also been picked up over the past few days).

For the third and final installment of my preview of Upfronts, I’ll play backseat executive and take a stab at scheduling the fall schedules for each of the 5 broadcast networks (except for Saturdays, because who cares). I’ve already taken a look at the potential schedules of both the CW and FOX. Now it’s time for the big leagues: The Big 3, with 7 days of programming 3 hour prime times.

Contrary to popular belief, NBC is currently the #1 Network in the all-important 18-49 demographic (which is way, way, way more important to a show’s renewal/cancellation fate than total viewership). It’s been rebuilding over the past couple seasons and this year, behind the strength of Sunday Night Football in the fall, The Voice, and The Blacklist, NBC is #1 in the demo (though CBS is #1 in total viewership and may yet snag #1 in 18-49 away from NBC during the final stretches of May Sweeps).

So what can NBC do to solidify its #1 status? Its Mondays are solid. Its Sundays are solid in the fall. Its Tuesdays are decent. But it starts to fall off from there. Wednesdays are shaky, Thursdays are abysmal, and Friday is a mixed bag.

Sunday
Sundays will be taken up by NFL Sunday Night Football. Which is good because without it NBC’s Sunday in the Spring tend to be terrible, usually consisting of a Dateline-The Apprentice combination, or in this past season, Dateline and lackluster dramas Crisis and Believe and reality show American Dream Builders.

Monday
The question for Monday is, do they move The Blacklist, which has shown enduring popularity and its strong DVR numbers indicate it has built an audience of its own outside of its strong Voice lead-in. They tried to do that with Revolution, whose ratings crumpled leading off Wednesday and was recently cancelled. With a strong following independent of The Voice, The Blacklist would likely have fans follow it to a new night to help kickstart things. And you know what night needs the most help? Thursdays. I was going to say they should try and maintain stability on at least one night, but through this hypothetical I’ve managed to convinced myself. Move The Blacklist. Obviously keep The Voice to Anchor the night, and what should follow it? State of Affairs. It starts Katherine Heigl (groan). While her place is Hollywood has dropped quite a bit, there are still some who view her favorably and fondly for her days as Dr. Izzie Stevens on Grey’s Anatomy. And trumpeting her ‘return to television’ will get those people’s interests. On the other hand, Constantine is probably one of NBC’s buzziest shows so that Monday would also be a good place for it following The Voice.

Tuesday
NBC tried to launch 2 comedies last TV season (Go On, The New Normal) that didn’t work. They tried again this season and one of them stuck (About a Boy). It’s ratings have dropped to a pretty modest level, but its still the #1 comedy on NBC (thanks in large part to its Voice lead-in). A big problem with comedies on Tuesday is that 3 networks are airing comedies in the 8 o’clock hour (that’s 9 o’clock for everyone not living in Central Time). One (or more) of the networks should definitely retreat from this, but for NBC, between Thursday and Tuesdays, I’d say give up Thursdays and try something new on that night. As for Tuesday, let’s try to launch new comedies. Amongst the crop of comedy pilots picked up to series for NBC, there are a couple that would fit with female-skewing The Voice: Kate Walsh-starring Bad Judge, Tina Fey-created, Ellie Kemper-starring Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Ellen DeGeneres executive produced, Elisha Cuthbert-starring One Big Happy, and romantic comedy Marry Me. I’d put give the prime lead out spot to Tina Fey’s show and follow that up with Bad Judge (logline: “Centers on a hard-living, sexually unapologetic woman (Kate Walsh) who plays with the law and whose life on the edge is constantly in balance, as she also happens to be a judge in the San Bernardino criminal court system”). Yes that description doesn’t make the show sound all that great, but Walsh has shown herself to be surprisingly quite funny from her appearances on Comedy Central roasts and @midnight. Maybe the program will be able to rise to her comedic strengths, maybe.

As for the 9 o’clock hour, I originally envisioned making a 2-hour comedy block with Parks and Recreation and something else, but remembered Chicago P.D. has been a reliable performer in the hour, so let’s not mess with that.

Wednesday
I’m realizing that with my original plan, there’s only going to be one hour of comedy for NBC, and you know what, let’s go with that. Save the comedy for later and let’s stick with dramas now. Law & Order: SVU and Chicago Fire are performing well enough in the last 2 hours of the night, so the issue with Wednesday is what to program to lead off the night? I’m trying to decide between Allegiance and Odyssey but I’ll give the edge to Odyssey.

Thursday
Alright, here’s the big rebuilding night. Thursday. With 3 of the 4 comedies from this past season getting axed, NBC should stop trying to replicate the era of Must See TV/Comedy Night Done Right and shake this night up. Move The Blacklist here to kick things off, follow it up with buzzy graphic novel drama Constantine, and end the night with the final season of Parenthood. Things can only improve from the abysmal ratings of the past season, by how much is the question and the ceiling seems like it could be pretty high.

Friday
Dateline, Grimm, Hannibal.

2014-15 NBC television schedule
new shows in italics

Sunday: NFL Sunday Night Football
Monday: The Voice/State of Affairs
Tuesday: The Voice/Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt/Bad Judge/Chicago P.D.
Wednesday: Odyssey/Law & Order: SVU/Chicago Fire
Thursday: The Blacklist/Constantine/Parenthood
Friday: Dateline/Grimm/Hannibal

Update I forgot NBC tends to release their schedule so before I got a chance to publish this NBC released its schedule, which was kind of similar to what I was thinking:
Sunday
7-8:20 p.m. — Football Night in America
8:20-11:30 p.m. — NBC Sunday Night Football
Monday
8-10 p.m. — The Voice
10-11 p.m. — The Blacklist / State of Affairs (beginning Nov. 17)
Tuesday
8-9 p.m. — The Voice
9-9:30 p.m. — Marry Me
9:30-10 p.m. — About a Boy
10-11 p.m. — Chicago Fire
Wednesday
8-9 p.m. — The Mysteries of Laura
9-10 p.m. — Law & Order: SVU
10-11 p.m. — Chicago P.D.
Thursday
8-9 p.m. — The Biggest Loser
9-9:30 p.m. — Bad Judge (The Blacklist beginning Feb. 5)
9:30-10 p.m. — A to Z
10-11 p.m. — Parenthood
Friday
8-9 p.m. — Dateline NBC
9-10 p.m. — Grimm
10-11 p.m. — Constantine

-So I got the Blacklist-to-Thursdays move semi-right, they’d move it, but not until mid-season. Not a bad strategy, but
a) Ratings for The Voice tend to slip towards the end of the season (a bit counter-intuitive since most season-long competition shows have higher ratings towards the end of their seasons as the field of competitors whittles down), which means that State of Affairs won’t have the best possible lead-off to launch it and presumably it will then play new episodes during the December-January doldrums without a Voice lead-in to help it
b) The Blacklist takes a length hiatus between its November finale, and doesn’t play a new episode until the Super Bowl before starting on Thursdays. They tried that with Revolution, taking it off the schedule for several months until The Voice came back in the spring. That helped people forget about it and it continued shedding viewers when it came back from its lengthy hiatus in its first season
c) What if comedies Bad Judge and A to Z, which The Blacklist will be displacing when it moves to Thursday in February, are hits? What then? Will they shuffle it around? Put it on hiatus?

-Also, they scheduled Constantine on Friday at 10pm (9 for central time). That has been the go-to time slot for genre shows like Hannibal and Dracula to pair with Grimm. I think Constantine can appeal to a broader audience then just a niche comic book audience, it shouldn’t be relegated to Friday nights. If it doesn’t do well on a different day, then shift it to Thursdays. But a movie based on the comics managed to make $230M worldwide, while I don’t think that’s profitable against a $100M budget (+marketing expenses and splitting revenues with theaters), it shows that this has enough of a mainstream appeal beyond Friday nights.

-They’re holding off on Tina Fey-created, Ellie Kemper-starring Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt until mid-season, interesting. I guess they can wait to see what sinks or swims come fall then throw in all their comedies (Parks and Rec is also being held for mid-season. Hell, they can pair the two up and put it on at Thursday to take over the slot Parenthood will vacate after its 13-episode final season).

-Debra Messing seems to be a constant at NBC from Will & Grace, Smash, and now The Mysteries of Laura. But this show will sink. I’m not actively rooting for it to fail, but from the clunky title to the meh-inducing premise, to the show seemingly over-relying on Messing to sell the show, I predict it will garner negligible ratings before a cancellation before the end of the year (I could conceivably see it chugging along with mid-to-low 1.0s, getting a full season order then getting the axe come May 2015).