network fall schedules

With commercial networks largely bereft of fresh material beyond reality shows, sports and game shows, PBS has a fall schedule of new programming, including a heavy dose of nonfiction, led by Ken Burns’ look at The American Buffalo.

Here we are, just days away from the start of the 2023-24 television season … and the major networks still aren’t 100% sure what they’re doing. Just last week, several broadcasters scrambled to make even more last-minute schedule changes — on top of other recently announced tweaks. The fall lineups that viewers tune into later this month will be remarkably different than the ones first announced in May.

The CW has put together a fall schedule full of international series and unscripted formats alongside scripted returner All American, while Walker is moving to midseason. The move is not a huge surprise given the company’s recent acquisition by Nexstar amid plans to lean into lower cost programming. Decisions are yet to be made on the three outstanding dramas Gotham Knights, Superman & Lois and All American: Homecoming, although more information is expected to emerge during the network’s upfront presentation later Thursday morning.

Fox broke with tradition this year by announcing the bulk of its programming slate for the 2022-23 but not a fall schedule in conjunction with its May 16 upfront presentation. The network continues to be forging its own path by unveiling today its fall grid along with premiere dates, becoming the last broadcast network to release its fall lineup but the first to announce premiere dates.

The most watched network follows other broadcasters in opting for light adjustments to its primetime lineup. Above,  So Help Me Todd, a legal drama with some comic elements, will air at 9 p.m. on Thursdays

MNT’s 16^th season, which debuts Sept. 20, expands its partnership with Wolf Entertainment and Universal Television to include Chicago Fire.

The lineup includes new seasons of Walker, The Flash, Riverdale, Batwoman and All American (which has quietly become the network’s top-rated show in the young adult demo after its previous seasons debuted on Netflix and Supernatural concluded). The Flash will launch with a five-episode crossover event featuring heroes from the other DC universe shows. There are also new series: The reimagined game show Legends of the Hidden Temple, a new U.S. version of the British reality show Killer Camp and a reboot of the sci-fi mystery drama series 4400.

The broadcast networks are looking forward to a normal TV season this fall after a year upended by COVID delays and production shutdowns. All five of the major networks have released their full schedules, going light on new comedies and heavy on Dick Wolf. The super-producer will occupy nine full hours of programming across multiple networks every week as the FBI, Law & Order and Chicago franchises continue to expand.

The youth-skewing network will program the entire week for the first time and is going for a bumper unscripted slate across the weekend as it has originals on Saturday nights for the first time. The broadcaster is moving a slew of shows to new nights for the upcoming season including new spots for Riverdale, which is being paired with The Flash, Batwoman and Nancy Drew, with DC’s Legends of Tomorrow moving back to the fall after a midseason experiment.

NCIS is a series you could set your clock by. For its entire 18-season run to date, the venerable crime drama starring Mark Harmon has had one time slot, always airing Tuesdays at 8 p.m. That is changing next season when CBS‘s most watched series will move to Monday for an FBI Tuesday lineup consisting of mothership FBI, new entry FBI: International and FBI: Most Wanted. The one-night, three-dramas, one-franchise scheduling conducive to frequent crossovers has become a Dick Wolf special, with CBS’s FBI Tuesday mirroring NBC’s One Chicago Wednesday and new Law & Order Thursday, giving the uber producer three consecutive nights across two broadcast networks.

After the success of The Bachelorette, delayed by the pandemic, as a Tuesday 8 p.m. anchor last fall, the ABC reality series will be back in the time slot this coming fall with the second of two 2021 cycles. Among the few changes on the ABC schedule from last fall is the move of breakout freshman drama Big Sky to the network’s high-flying Thursday lineup. There, it will succeed canceled Rebel in the 10 p.m. hour, following ABC’s highest rated scripted series, Grey’s Anatomy, which again has spinoff Station 19 as a lead-in.

Fox is bucking the trend of franchise lineups. On the heels of NBC unveiling One Chicago Wednesday and Law & Order Thursday on their fall schedule and following the success of ABC’s pairing of Grey’s Anatomy and Station 19 and CBS’s block of FBI and FBI: Most Wanted, Fox has opted to (temporarily) split its 9-1-1 series. Flagship 9-1-1 will remain the Monday 8 p.m. anchor but offshoot 9-1-1: Lone Star, which has followed it this season, will not be part of Fox’s fall schedule; it will fill in for the mothership in midseason.

In an unusual television season marked by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has kept production mostly at a standstill, ABC is rolling out a fall schedule that so far only includes unscripted series, though the network plans to announce scripted premiere dates in the near future.

The network, which has a coronavirus-proof fall schedule, will aim to film its four dramas and two comedies as soon as it’s safe to do so.

The Disney-owned broadcaster revealed its schedule for the 2020-21 season, without using the word “fall” once. Instead, the Karey Burke-led network hopes that its scripted and unscripted fare can return to work soon enough so that the network’s originals can return either in September or as late as November. In debuting its schedule, the network is relying heavily on unscripted series to help carry the load and reduce the number of scripted originals that will likely need extra time to film episodes with safety protocols put in place amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Sources close to the network say that while it is unlikely that everything will be ready in time for the traditional start of the network season in September, it is confident that the return to production is moving along fast enough that it will have its biggest series like This Is Us and new Law & Order: Organized Crime ready for “around mid-October.”

ABC and Fox chiefs share fatigue with the early May crunch, while CBS and NBC execs seem more wed to the upfront schedule.

As cable and streaming options continue to win a greater share of advertiser budgets, the broadcast networks are far from done. They showed last week that they are still major players, still the favorite of the big mass advertisers, the people who throw around billions. It won’t always be that way.

The 2019-2020 broadcast season will be here before we know it, and the schedule for the season has several compelling match ups to offer. The final seasons of multiple shows will bow this fall, while several freshman shows will find themselves facing stiff competition in their timeslots. Likewise, some returning shows have been shuffled to slots that do not portend well for their futures. Check out the full schedule.

The CW is making a lot of changes for next season, with only four of the 12 time slots on the fall schedule featuring the same occupants they did last fall. The fall 2019 lineup includes two intriguing DC superhero team-ups: a suoerheroine Sunday with Supergirl and Batwoman and The Flash and Arrow together for the first time on Tuesday.

Just like its competition this year, ABC is using “stability” as its buzzword for next season, as well as leaning into its female-centric brand. The company announced on Tuesday that its fall 2019 schedule will feature just three new scripted series, touting that it makes for the network’s “most stable schedule in over a decade.”

Upfronts Week 2019 is underway, and Fox is the second broadcast-TV network (following NBC) to announce its schedule for the fall TV season.

Calling comedy the “heart” of its brand, the network announced it is adding four new sitcoms to its lineup for 2019-20, with stars including Kenan Thompson of Saturday Night Live and sitcom veterans Fran Drescher (The Nanny) and Steven Weber (Mom, ‘Wings). In addition, the return of network’s popular drama This is Us  wasn’t in doubt, but NBC cemented its value to the network by renewing it for what it called an “unprecedented” three more years.