NBC revealed its Fall 2023-24 TV schedule on Friday ahead of the Monday upfront event. The broadcast channel’s lineup was in no way affected by the WGA strike, Jeff Bader, president of program planning at NBCUniversal, told IndieWire.
Bader said what he released today is “the exact same schedule” that NBC would have unveiled if WGA and AMPTP had come to terms earlier this month. “The program was actually completed before we knew whether or not the strike was going to happen,” she said in a telephone interview.
It helps that the schedule is, in Bader’s words, “very stable” compared to last year’s lineup. That will be NBC’s main talking point on Monday as the network pushes its programming on advertisers and tries to ignore elephants the size of Linda Yaccarino and Jeff Shell in their room at Radio City Music Hall.
All of NBC’s scripted fall shows were “out of production” or “winding up filming,” she said — or at least, “the scripts are all written.” A few examples: Freshmen “Found” and “The Irrational” were picked up last fall and thrown into an off-cycle production (“Found” was originally supposed to air midseason last season) and the “Night Court” comeback remained in continuous production.
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The Dick Wolf shows returning to NBC for the fall are the only ones that could pose a problem for NBC if the WGA strike goes on “for a very long time,” Bader said. That’s because “Chicago Med,” “Chicago Fire,” “Chicago PD,” “Law & Order,” and “Law & Order: SVU” all aired last year and have a more traditional cycle.
If the writers strike last (and last), NBC has episodes of “La Brea” and “Magnum PI” ready to transition from midseason to fall. There are other contingency plans in place as well, Bader said.
“At some point the strike will end,” he added, probably reassuring himself as much as we do.
Bader has been here before with the 2007-08 WGA strike. As was Steve Kern, senior vice president of content planning and strategy at NBC, who said, “We are much better prepared for the strike than we were three years ago when we were sent home to work from home on a Friday and were told not to enter the office ever again.
“We’ve gone through this drill in several scenarios and I think we’re better prepared than we’ve ever been,” continued Kern. “We’ve been thinking about how to handle this for a while.”
Below is NBC’s Fall 2023-24 television schedule. As is their format, new programs are in ALL CAPS; all times ET
MONDAY
20:00-22:00 — The Voice
10pm-11pm — THE IRRATIONAL
TUESDAY
20:00-20:30 — Night Court
20:30-21:00 – EXTENDED FAMILY
21:00-22:00 – The voice
10pm-11pm – Quantum leap
WEDNESDAY
8pm-9pm — Chicago Med
9-10pm — Chicago Fire
10pm-11pm — Chicago PD
THURSDAY
20:00-21:00 — Law and order
9-10pm — Law & Order: SVU
10pm-11pm – FOUND
FRIDAY
20:00-21:00 – The wall
9-11pm — NBC data line
SATURDAY
7pm-7:30pm — BIG TEN COUNTDOWN / Notre Dame Pregame (also live on Peacock)
7:30-11:00 PM — BIG TEN SATURDAY NIGHT / Notre Dame Football (also live on Peacock)
SUNDAY
7pm-8:20pm — Football Night in America (also live on Peacock)
8:20pm-11:00pm – NBC Sunday Night Football (also live on Peacock)
