‘We are listening’: ABC exec
Network sticking with the familiar for 2019-20 season
With the TV industry in flux, ABC entertainment chief Karey Burke said a goal for the network’s 2019-20 schedule is something network audiences might welcome — familiarity.
There are newcomers, notably Tiffany Haddish, and inevitable cancellations. But ABC said next season represents the lightest hand in more than a decade.
“Viewers love our shows and we are listening to the audience. So this year we’re not trying to jam them with too many messages and too many new shows to watch,” said Burke, presenting her first schedule since being named to the position last November.
Although ABC had a “tough” start last fall, she said, a ratings rebound since January justifies the approach.
That means nurturing the shows in place, such as longtime ABC successes Grey’s Anatomy and The Bachelor and not “putting on something new for the sake of something new,” she said.
But low-rated series are out, and their replacements include Haddish as host and producer of a reboot of Kids Say the Darndest Things. Burke said the actress-comedian who gained fame in Girls Trip was the star she most coveted and other networks competed for her show. There are three other newbies debuting in fall, including Mixed-ish, a Black-ish spinoff that stars Arica Himmel as the preteen version of the mom, Rainbow, played by Tracee Ellis Ross in the original show.
Allison Tolman stars in Emergence, described as a character-driven genre thriller, while the graphic novel-based Stumptown stars Vancouver-born Cobie Smulders as an army veteran turned private eye.
The midseason entries include the dramas For Life, about a prisoner seeking freedom for himself and others, with Curtis (50 Cent) Jackson among the producers, and The Baker and the Beauty, about the unlikely romance between a working man and a superstar.
The family comedy United We Fall also is on deck for midseason.
JIMMY AND OSCAR
The host of late-night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! has signed on for three more years, Burke said.
The new deal means that “we’ll be able to celebrate 20 years together with Jimmy,” she said.
He may not be required to rescue ABC from a repeat of this year’s no-host Oscars. When controversy drove Kevin Hart from the job, the ceremony failed to woo a replacement and let presenters carry the show. Although Burke was noncommittal about whether Kimmel might return to host in 2020, she expressed satisfaction with the ceremony and its ratings.
“We’re extremely proud of how the show turned out creatively and how well it performed this year,” she said. “I think you’ll see us not messing with that formula, to the best of our abilities.”
KIMMEL SOLO
One duty the comedian can’t skip is entertaining advertisers and media buyers for ABC and other Disney networks at a New York theatre, eviscerating his employers as well as their competitors.
In his 16th outing Tuesday, Kimmel called Modern Family, which ends after next season, “the rarest of ABC shows — a hit.” He summoned the memory of past network standout Desperate Housewives to poke fun at a cast member involved in the college-bribery scandal.
That was “back in the days when Felicity Huffman only PLAYED a scheming suburban mom,” he said.
Over at NBC, Kimmel said, popular drama This Is Us received a rare, three-year renewal — “Or, as Constance Wu would call it, a death sentence,” a reference to the ABC star’s public outburst.
TOUGH CALL
Although ABC’s cancellation slate is far from a Red Wedding, these seven shows got the axe: Whiskey Cavalier, For the People, Dancing with the Stars: Juniors, Child Support, The Alec Baldwin Show, The Kids Are Alright and Splitting Up Together.
Add one more: Speechless, a groundbreaking comedy about a teenager with cerebral palsy, played by Micah Fowler, and his family. “It was not without great, gut-wrenching consideration that we ultimately made that call,” Burke said.