It's been a busy week on NBC, with several new entries joining the renew/cancel fray this week, including a new reality series and some of NBC's signature hits. Keep reading for initial predictions for all of them!
Certain Cancellation:
N/A
Leans Cancellation:
On Brand with Jimmy Fallon (0.19, 0.17-0.22)
Leans Renewal:
Law & Order (0.22, 0.21-0.23)
Likely Renewal:
Law & Order: SVU (0.27, 0.26-0.28)
The Voice (0.36, 0.31-0.42)
Certain Renewal:
Chicago Fire (0.39)
Chicago Med (0.36)
Chicago PD (0.34)
Dateline NBC (0.17, 0.15-0.19)
Saturday Night Live (0.68)
Coming Soon:
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins
Happy's Place
The Hunting Party
St. Denis Medical
Stumble
Surviving Earth
On Brand with Jimmy Fallon: With NBC's biggest new fall entry, the NBA, not starting its season until late fall, they were always bound to have a family awkward Tuesday night schedule. It's only four weeks from the start of the regular TV season until NBA games begin on NBC, which isn't enough time to air a full season of any show. Enter On Brand with Jimmy Fallon, which has a peculiar twice-weekly schedule. It airs Tuesday at 10 until the NBA season starts, while its run on Fridays at 8 will continue slight longer, wrapping on Halloween. So On Brand is not a show that'll be with us for very long, airing its eight episodes over about a month's time. Given its limited run, this new reality series is not exactly a disaster for NBC, but it's not doing particularly well, either. It's dropped in each of its airings, and it didn't start out with very high ratings to begin with, drawing just a 0.22 rating despite a solid 0.41 lead-in. It was down to a 0.18 for its Friday debut, trailing Celebrity Wheel of Fortune (the only other original entertainment program in that time slot) by nearly a tenth. Then, for its second Tuesday airing, it slipped further, to a 0.17. Given the general state of NBC, they could do worse than a presumably-affordable reality show rating drawing low 0.2s, but I also feel it's unlikely they'll bother renewing it, either. Yes, Brilliant Minds is doing even worse, and Law & Order isn't doing that much better, but a show slipping to a 0.17 by its third airing is not likely to be a show NBC is rushing to order more of. It's keeping the slot occupied for the time being, but that's about it. Repeats probably wouldn't rate much different in that slot, at a fraction of the cost. NBC also has several other game shows that could fill those few weeks between the start of the season, including The Wall. On Brand was a decent attempt by NBC to launch a new filler program that features a star familiar to their audience, but it hasn't worked out all that well. As of now, it's not rating poorly enough for a renewal to be completely out of the question, but it isn't doing enough to predict a renewal. It LEANS CANCELLATION out of the starting gate, and with only five episodes left and ratings trending the wrong way, it's probably not going to leave this side of the bubble.
Chicago Fire, Chicago Med and Chicago PD: It's been a terrible start to the season for NBC, and solid returns for the Chicago franchise is just what NBC needed to give them a silver lining. Luckily, that's exactly what happened. While the Law & Order series are barely hanging on at this point, the Chicago trio returned in fine form, with Med and Fire starting out the night up from their year-ago debuts, and PD stable year-to-year. That's a positive change from last year, when the trio looked weaker than ever as they debuted new seasons, each sliding at least 40% from the previous premiere. The shows improved as the season went on, so it's possible that their yer-to-year trend won't stay quite as strong as the season continues, but this is a really impressive start. CBS hasn't debuted a single scripted show yet, and 9-1-1 hasn't premiered either, but Chicago Fire is currently the #1 scripted show of the season (not counting NFL-boosted ratings of Fox's series), and Med is close behind. All three shows are also performing at least as well on Peacock as they were last season, as well, so it's looking good for all three of them across the board. The ratings so far have made it clear that this should be the Dick Wolf franchise that NBC prioritizes moving forward, as they're overall looking much stronger than the Law & Order series. None of these shows should be in danger this season, and even though they're fairly costly (as evidenced by all of NBC's recent cost-cutting measures, which included reduced budgets and cast changes), they do well enough for them to make it worth that cost. Thanks to Fire and particularly PD enjoying syndication deals while it does not, Med is still the most endangered, but even it should be absolutely fine. NBC is in too bad of shape to even think about messing with the only night that works right now. All three start as CERTAIN RENEWALS.
Interactive Schedule:
| The TV Ratings Guide | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | The Voice | Brilliant Minds | ||||
| Tues | The Voice | On Brand with Jimmy Fallon | ||||
| Wed | Chicago Med | Chicago Fire | Chicago PD | |||
| Thurs | Law & Order | Law & Order: SVU | Law & Order: Organized Crime | |||
| Fri | On Brand with Jimmy Fallon | Dateline NBC | ||||
| Sat | College Football on NBC | |||||
| Sun | Sunday Night Football | |||||
What do you think of my predictions? What are your predictions? Let me know in the comments and vote in the poll of the week!
