It’s a bird! A plane! A spinoff!
Networks hope for a hero in fall lineups
Major broadcast networks are gearing up to unveil their fall schedules to advertisers next week in New York with glitzy presentations and more competition than ever for viewers.
It was a mixed bag in terms of ratings, but this season yielded just one breakout hit in Fox’s Empire, and solid performers in ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder, CBS’ Scorpion and ABC’s Black-ish. Empire built its audience consistently for 13 weeks, an unheard-of phenomenon. Next season it will air for about 18
episodes, split into fall and spring chapters.
Also on tap are two more DC Comics superhero series (CBS’ Supergirl and CW’s Legends of Tomorrow, combining guest stars from Arrow and The Flash); a fourth ABC drama from producer Shonda Rhimes, this time about a fraud investigator who becomes a victim; Fox family comedies starring Rob Lowe and John Stamos; a spinoff of CBS’ Criminal Minds; and an 18-years-later sequel to Coach, the sitcom starring Craig T. Nelson. Look for still more family comedies and spinoffs.
But many fans are more eager to learn the fate of their favorite shows, including CBS’ Person of Interest. ABC’s Marvel’s Agent Carter and Fox’s Bones, both popular on USA TODAY’s Save Our Shows poll, will be back along with ABC’s Nashville, though Fox has canceled low-rated comedy The Mindy Project. Yet Hulu is in discussions about a two-year pickup of Mindy, echoing Yahoo’s rescue of NBC’s low-rated comedy Community, as streaming sites become new outlets for reviving canceled shows.
ABC, up 6%, had a surprisingly solid performance, while Fox (down 21%) continued to crater despite Empire and Gotham, which started strongly last fall but faded. NBC fell 7%, even with this year’s record-high Super Bowl, as its new series were mostly duds. The network will have at most one returning comedy if Undateable is renewed.
Network ad spending is expected to fall, though this year it’s due more to digital diversification than economic concerns, says Sam Armando of Chicago ad firm SMGx.
Despite the attention heaped on Netflix and newer entrants, the decades-old ritual of unveiling schedules is “still relevant,” says Sam Armando of ad firm SMGx. TV still represents “the majority of hours spent with a screen,” and networks do “a good job of feeding the pipeline of all the other screens that get consumers watching.”