Is NBC Done With Thursday-Night Comedy For Good?

[TMC]

https://www.primetimer.com/barnhart/...ght-comedy-nbc

By the early 2000s, though, you could see NBC’s interest in sitcoms waning. Donald Trump was given the 9 p.m. hour on Thursdays in 2004. When The Apprentice signed off for the season, America’s Got Talent signed on. NBC was still developing comedy hits, but on a lower order of magnitude. The Office, 30 Rock, and Scrubs were single-camera comedies that were geared to what network sales people called “key demographics,” though you and I know them as young white people.

Quirky sitcoms defined NBC for the next decade: The Office, Community, Parks And Rec. Then in 2014, NBC miscalculated with two new Thursday comedies that bombed, leaving Thursdays laugh-free for a time. But the ship righted again in 2016 when The Good Place, from Parks And Rec’s Mike Schur, was paired with Superstore, which was moved from Mondays. Now both of those are gone, with memorable finales.

Starting this week NBC is plugging the Superstore gap with the third-season premiere of Manifest, followed by SVU and Law & Order: Organized Crime, an SVU spinoff that purports to crack a mob case every seven days (subject to COVID delays). And it feels like the passing of an era. Truth be told, “Thursdays is for comedy!” is a phrase that only made sense when the prime-time schedule was the go-to container for delivering TV shows to viewers. Then DVRs let us record a show on Thursday and watch it on on Sunday. Then came Hulu, and we could stream those shows years after the fact. Now, with NBC Universal rolling out its streaming service Peacock, the time is fast approaching when the company's shows are completely unmoored from nights of the week. Never say never, but March 25, 2021, might be the day NBC’s Thursday comedy tradition ended for good.

[Yong Fang]

Seems that CBS has taken over that Thursday comedy slot.b

Besides it is 2021, people are watching TV at their convenience on other platforms anyway.

[king of comedy]

NBC must see tv had a great run. Times change.

[cnnbcbs]

Originally Posted by king of comedy

NBC must see tv had a great run. Times change.

Right. Sometimes you can't go home again. They had a good run. NBC should've done more multi-cams towards the end instead of the same old fey-schur stuff

[icecream]

NBC needs more multi camera comedies with broad appeal that aren't niche garbage coming from Tina Fey. Mr. Mayor was horribly unfunny and did not deserve renewal. I never saw Superstore but the review for the pilot here calling it a mix of Family Guy and The Office convinced me never to watch Superstore as I hate those shows. Manifest is a well done sci-fi show that needs a long run of at least 5 seasons, the leadoff Thursday hour is vastly improved quality wise now.