NEW YORK, May 16
NBC is going to crawl out of the ratings cellar and back to first place among the 18-to-49-year-olds advertisers love with creepy sea creatures, infertility specialists, America's most famous felon, a petty thief, a fantasy Pentagon and the latest redo of "Queen for a Day."
The network is gutting its 8 p.m. slate on five nights next fall because, NBC Universal Television Group President Jeff Zucker explained, "it's really where we fell down this year," and without viewers at 8 "the ability to launch things at 9, having them self-start, is nearly impossible."
Among the 8 o'clock offerings will be a Martha Stewart-hosted edition of "The Apprentice" on Wednesdays -- in addition to The Donald's version the next night at 9 -- and, on Friday, a "Queen for a Day"-esque reality series called "Three Wishes," in which singer Amy Grant descends upon little towns, and the little townspeople stand in line to tell her their wishes. NBC then decides which three are most camera-sweet, and Amy makes their three wishes come true and everyone lives happily ever after.
On the bright side, did you know that NBC's audience is rich?
Rich, rich, rich.
Stinking, filthy rich.
The most upscale audience since Moliere played Versailles. NBC viewers are so rich, they've got money coming out their flat screens.
We learned that when NBC unveiled its fall prime-time schedule Monday at Radio City Music Hall on Day 1 of Upfront Week, when the networks try to persuade ad execs to commit to billions of dollars in commercial time on series upfront, before they debut.
Once upon a time, NBC bragged about being the most watched network in the country. When that went away, NBC boasted it was No. 1 among the 18- to 49-year-olds whom advertisers pay a premium to reach.
These days, what with NBC about to finish the season in fourth place among that premium crowd -- a close fourth, NBC points out -- it's playing up the upscaleness of the NBC viewer. Not many of them, but what audience there is is well-off. Upscale here, upscale there, upscale everywhere. Why, if we had a buck for every time we heard the word "upscale" during NBC's presentation, we'd be rich enough to watch "The Office." Which, did you know, is TV's most upscale comedy? NBC suits said so Monday, by way of explaining why they're bringing back the mid-season comedy that averaged only 6.4 million viewers in its brief, six-episode run.
"The Office" will be back on Tuesday night, packaged with a new comedy called "My Name Is Earl" about a petty thief who wins some lottery money (not enough to turn him into an NBC viewer, mind you, but enough) and is immediately hit by a car, which leads him to decide he must make amends for all the lousy things he's ever done. NBC Entertainment chief Kevin Reilly said it was NBC's highest-testing comedy in 15 years; a short clip definitely got the biggest applause from advertisers of any new show trotted out Monday.
