We’ve reached the broadcast networks’ Upfront Week… which used to be a lot more central to our television lives than it is now.  Ratings everywhere are down, and there’s no reason to think they’ve hit bottom, which has caused seismic changes in the ways networks make scheduling decisions.  Among other things, with revenues from […]

We’ve reached the broadcast networks’ Upfront Week… which used to be a lot more central to our television lives than it is now.  Ratings everywhere are down, and there’s no reason to think they’ve hit bottom, which has caused seismic changes in the ways networks make scheduling decisions.  Among other things, with revenues from on-air […]

  In a very unusual move, NBC has already made major changes in the fall schedule that it announced just 2 weeks ago.  In fact, it’s changed the centerpiece of that schedule, reversing the move of its breakout hit This Is Us to Thursdays, and leaving it instead on Tuesday.   As the chart indicates, This Is […]

  Welcome to Upfronts week, when the broadcast networks (or what’s left of them) announce their Fall schedules and attempt to generate billions of dollars worth of excitement from advertisers.  It’s harder than ever to authoritatively analyze the thought process that goes into a broadcaster’s cancellation, renewal and pick-up decisions, because network ad revenues directly […]

  FOX has unveiled a set of schedules that will shift throughout the season–and even into Summer 2014.  Let’s take a look. FALL MONDAY 8PM:         Bones/Almost Human 9PM:         Sleepy Hollow FOX didn’t want to launch back-to-back new dramas in the fall, so Bones will set up Sleepy Hollow‘s debut until an unspecified (post-baseball) date in […]

  In the CBS featurette for its new midseason action-adventure INTELLIGENCE (it’ll take over the Monday 10PM timeslot from Hostages), the show is variously compared to Mission: impossible, Frankenstein, The Six Million Dollar Man and James Bond.  Curiously, the one they left out was Chuck, for which this show’s concept is virtually a dead ringer:  […]

  CW didn’t need to make a lot of changes after a successful (on its terms) season, and it hasn’t.  The network confined its fall moves to 2 nights, opting for stability the rest of the week and keeping 4 additional shows (2 new, 2 returning) for midseason use.  Here are the details: MONDAY:  This […]

  FOX’s most highly-touted drama pilot the entire development season was RAKE, which is indeed on the air.  The price of scoring Greg Kinnear as a lead (much as it had been last year with Kevin Bacon) is that he would only commit to a limited number of episodes, so the show will air on […]