NBC’s full scripted originals picture will not come into focus until after next week’s upfront presentations to Madison Avenue ad buyers.
The network on Friday unveiled its fall schedule and announced that it has renewed George Lopez’s father-daughter rookie comedy Lopez vs. Lopez for a second season. But missing from the schedule was news on the network’s three remaining bubble comedies Grand Crew, Young Rock and American Auto. Also yet to be determined are the fates of four pilots — comedies Non-Evil Twin and St. Denis Medical and dramas Murder by the Book and Wolf.
Sources say the network will not decide the fates of the three bubble comedies or its pilots until after next week’s upfront presentations to ad buyers, as NBC continues to shift to year-round programming and weighs the impact of the Writers Guild of America’s strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios, over such issues as streaming residuals and AI.
Season two of Lopez vs. Lopez will return to NBC midseason, when it will join the schedule alongside returning scripted shows Law & Order: Organized Crime, La Brea and Magnum P.I.
Lopez, a multicamera comedy produced in-house by Universal Television, has the highest concentration of English-dominant Hispanic homes among all broadcast primetime series, NBC says. The series also has the highest portion of long-tail viewing when factoring in 35 days of delayed viewing on Peacock, where the family comedy streams. George Lopez stars alongside his daughter, Mayan Lopez, with Selenis Leyva, Brice Gonzalez, Matt Shively and Al Madrigal. Creator Debby Wolfe serves as showrunner and exec produces alongside Bruce Helford (The Connors), George Lopez, Michael Rotenberg and Katie Newman.
The longer the writers strike continues, the more likely it is to have a direct impact on the ability of scripted broadcast shows to return in September. NBC, like CBS, has not factored the strike into its fall schedule, as that features 10 new and returning scripted originals. (Click here for more on NBC’s 2023-24 fall schedule.)
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Source: Hollywood
