Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

I think NBC has the best shows.

30 Rock, Parks & Recreation, Heroes (I like it), SNL (a tradition where I have to watch even if it is less than stellar these days), Sunday Night Football, NBC Nightly News, Today, & Conan.

I don't understand why quality shows like 30 rock can't crack the top ten in Neilson ratings.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

The phrase higher highs and lower lows comes to mind with NBC programming.

As long as NBC has Chuck and Friday Night Lights, they are far from the worst network. :) I think both shows would have been canned by now on another network.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

NBC and Fox are my most watched channels so I can't say much, I'm apparently odd man out.

On the bright side, I won't feel like I'm missing anything by not being up at midnight anymore.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

I think that tells you everything you need to know about how badly Zucker's screwed the network.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

Looks like NBC Nightly News, Community and SNL for me. Nothing else.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

Well are these "encores" the episodes that were first run only on USA? If so, these may be "new" to many NBC viewers who don't get USA.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

I am really into genealogy so I am looking forward to the show. I really loved the PBS African American Lives specials which sort of did the same thing for black celebrities.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

The Heroes season finale is February 8th.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

Only 5 slots for Law & Order? Better get crackin on a new spinoff.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

Done. Dick Wolf is already developing Law and Order: Los Angeles....And I'm not joking.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

"Parenthood" is the only one I'm really interested in, growing up that was one of my families favorite movies and now with Lauren Graham I'm excited.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

My commitment to NBC shows goes as far as my Tivo capacity. I will Tivo an entire season of something i find interesting and watch it when NBC announces it is coming back.

I liked the Black Donnelly's, Studio 60 and that Christian Slater show and that got me nowhere.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

Personally, these days I'm wary of giving any new show a chance, regardless of network. Seems like the survival of anything new is threatened if it's not a hit right out of the gate.

I think basic and premium cable shows have spoiled me. Even if they cancel a show, they tend to air all of its remaining episodes. The quality's higher and they'll give shots to shows that aren't yet another cop/legal/medical drama set in NY or LA. Looking at some of my current favorites - a terminally ill high school chemistry teacher-turned aspiring drug kingpin, a glacially paced period piece about an ad agency (that features copious amounts of smoking!!! -eek- :) ), the exploits of a New Zealand comedy folk duo, and a serial killer vigilante* - the networks would never put stuff like that on.

That's why I wasn't broken up about Leno taking over the 10 pm shot. Chances are that NBC wouldn't have aired anything that would really appeal to me. And looking at this schedule, I think "Parenthood" is the only one that I'll watch.

*Rerunning the last one during the writers strike doesn't count.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

I'd gladly give up many shows if it wasn't for the GF who likes to watch them. I watch them with her, but couldn't care about their fate.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

I don't understand this thinking at all. You don't watch for fear it will be cancelled, yet it has no chance of staying on the air if you don't watch. Catch-22 anyone???

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

Well, really, I'm not a Nielsen household so whether or not I watch means squat in regards to a show's survival. But why get invested in a show when it's likely going to get axed after a handful of episodes? Especially since that between my current shows, my backlog of DVDs, and stacks of unwatched UK imports, I have no shortage of other things I could be watching, not to mention the books, movies, and video games competing for my free time.

That's not to say that I always have that attitude. This season I watched "Community", "Flashforward", and "V" right off the bat (though the last one I've slacked on and am waaaay behind), but those were highly appealing to me from the get-go. It's the shows that are only somewhat intriguing at first glance that I may take a wait and see attitude with.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

The problem isn't that they are canceling those shows prematurely for only getting decent ratings, it's that that is the perception. The reality is that all 3 of those show deserved to be canceled. I am a big fan of all 3 of those shows, but they all earned their cancellations. Southland took a huge dip in the ratings over the course of 7 episodes to if I remember correctly like a 2.2, which is borderline for cancellation. It got picked up, but the reality of the situation was it was a 10 o'clock show but no 10 o'clock spots. Considering the downward trend in the ratings and NBC's overall drop it was extremely likely that the show would drop to under a 2 and would have to be canceled. NBC made a smart moved and decided not to sink millions of dollars into advertising for a show that was likely to fail. They never should have picked it up in the first place.

Life was given a 13 episode season two with sub par season one ratings, and after ratings dropped even more NBC still picked it up for the back nine. By the time the show was canceled the final got like 4.5 million viewers and like a high 1.8. They gave multiple chances to improve, but it just wasn't going to.

Journeyman was given the post Heroes slot, back when heroes did well and it was losing a huge percent of its audience. It was a somewhat serialized show, and serialized show almost never grow. For that matter dramas almost never grow. If you notice the example of shows that grow are always comedies, Seinfeld, The Office, Family Guy. There are exceptions, but in general they don't grow. NBC is also the network that seems to give the most chances. Friday Night Lights, Chuck, 30 Rock, The Office and Parks and Recreations would all have been canceled by most of the other networks.

I think the problem is NBC produces the best shows, so when they cancel shows they are actually canceling good shows. Compare that to CBS where most of what they cancel is crap. NBC shouldn't be faulted for canceling good shows, if they didn't they would pretty much never be able to make new shows. For instance had they not canceled My Name is Earl we wouldn't have Community.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

I'm surprised that networks don't make use of their sister cable channels as a farm system for new shows. Burn Notice, for example could easily be a 10pm NBC show. In fact, it reminds me of the kind of network show that did well in the 80's. Fun, lots of action and doesn't require a commitment to watch every single episode.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

What you may not see is NBC had no other choice but to renew some of those shows (or give them the back 9).

FNL only got a 3rd, 4tf and soon 5th season because they worked out a deal with DirecTV. Had it not been for that, the show would have been gone. Chuck has a very large fanbase and it's ratings were pretty damn good for NBC.

As for Community, Earl didn't make a difference for Community. It would have either launched mid-season or on a different day (i.e. after 1.5 hours of Biggest Loser).

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

Of course they had a choice on picking Life up for the back 9. They didn't just do it because they needed programming, Both the Listener and The Philanthropist which aired in the summer could have taken over had they canceled life, but they chose to give it another chance.

Friday Night Lights was helped by the direct tv deal but at the end of the day the show is still around because of NBC. It never should have been picked up for a second season, but they gave it one. Then they struck up the deal with direct tv to continue the show. Any other network would have just canceled the show.

And for Community, when was the last time NBC aired a half hour sitcom alone with a 1 and a half hour show. They always seem to group up their comedies and for the last few years have only done Thursday night comedies. Besides even if they had picked up Community for mid season it would have been either with a reduced pickup for My Name is Earl or with the intentions of canceling Earl sometime during the season.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

More Reality and game shows. Neat.

Re: NBC announces its post-Olympics (No more Leno at 10!) schedule - FNL, Parenthood,
 

I'm surprised that they didn't just dump Burn Notice reruns into a time slot for convenience sake (Friday at 10 would probably work best), but I don't think they can or should cannibalize a successful cable offering to feed the network. That just creates more problems. I also don't think there are many 10-16 episode a year shows that are likely to be scalable to a 22-24 episode network season. You have pay issues, creative issues, and the like that would crop up to make it a huge headache.

ETA: I am a bit surprised that they didn't try to move Conan to USA at 11:35 or something like that, though. Perhaps the contract does specify NBC. Even then, I'm a bit surprised they didn't try to create a HD subchannel like NBC.2 to put him on.