Each Thursday at 9:30 p.m. EST, after The Office airs (or, in the case of last night, a monumentally terrific episode of Parks and Recreation), I change the channel from NBC and wash my hands of the its primetime offerings until the next Thursday, as the days in between have become barren wastelands of programming. I watch The Office and Community out of loyalty, though both are shells of what they used to be. Honestly the best thing on NBC outside of Parks and Rec is Saturday Night Live, and how often could you have said that about NBC? There are 22 hours of primetime programming on the network, and there’s only one half hour of great television in that entire time.
That’s pathetic.
Now, the ratings have gone from bad to worse. How bad is it? In the 18-49 demo, it fell to FIFTH during February sweeps. FIFTH. Behind UNIVISION. I don’t even know where Univision is on my programing guide (not that I should; it’s a Spanish-speaking network). Here’s a look at the month’s dismal numbers:
The two programs that were supposed to salvage NBC’s season, or at least hold the fort between cycles of The Voice were Do No Harm — which received the lowest debut for a Big Three drama of all time, with a 0.9 — and Smash, which returned with a 1.1, down 71 PERCENT since its debut the previous season. Those two shows fared even worse their second time out, with a 0.7 and a 0.9, respectively. But the kicker is this: NBC averaged a 1.2 for THE ENTIRE MONTH. Remember Lone Star, that critically adored Fox series that was cancelled after only two episodes in 2010? That show at least had a 1.3. If NBC were a program on another network, the entire station would be cancelled.
It’s a trainwreck. In fact, Univision has beaten NBC every single night of the sweeps month in the 18-49 demo. In total viewers, NBC doesn’t have a single show in the top 25, and among the 18-49, it has only one, The Office, at number 24. At this point, syndicated Big Bang Theory reruns would probably be the biggest hit on NBC. I kid you not: Dog with a Blog on Disney is outrating pretty much everything on the NBC schedule in total viewers.
It’s a sad state of affairs on the Peacock network. They’d probably be best off blowing the entire network up and starting from scratch as a kid’s network.
![[avatar]](http://p.uproxxcdn.com/photo/4006/thumb)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/06/harmoncat-150x150.jpg)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/06/Brie-GIF-150x150.gif)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/06/communityjeff-150x150.gif)
![[image]](http://cdn.uproxx.com/wp-content/thumbnails/130/110/2013/06/cbs-had-12-of-the-25-highest-rated-tv-shows-of-the-2012-2013-150x150.jpg)
That’ll learn them for firing Dan Harmon.
A part of me is secretly hoping that Harmon is behind the entire thing.
Then again, half of Univision’s audience is Latino men looking at Jackie Guerrido and biting their firsts.
Relevant:
[yogafrogcaps.com]
Her?
That link doesn’t do her justice. A google image search of her name just made me happy down there.
Wow, she seems boobs.
I mean “nice.” Boobs seems nice.
Stupid linking and dead content! Seriously, watch Univision, the ENTIRE news team are hot Latinas.
TANK IT!
On a side note, why the hell did they hold Grimm until after sweeps? It’s not a great show or anything, but doesn’t it do well for Fridays? And when you’re in the shitter like NBC, you’d think that any little bit of success helps.
They’re so awful at scheduling hiatuses (hiati?). Revolution was their first big hit in who knows how long, and the last episode of that aired on November 26th. NOVEMBER.
It’s shocking that Grimm is still in their Friday night slot, it’s not like it could perform worse than any of the other crap they show during the week.
Yeah, that hiatus for Revolution was asinine. It felt like the only reason they did that was because they saw that other successful shows like Walking Dead do it, so we should to!
I guess it’s better to be a success by Friday standards than below average by weeknight standards. Look at how Fox went easy on Fringe when they put it on Friday.
That said, maybe it would do okay if t had a decent lead-in. My parents love Grimm, so it’s got to have some appeal to folks who aren’t into genre shows.
Grimm is dumb as a butt and yet I still find myself watching it. Can’t explain it.
Man, I really miss the old Community. The show has completely lost its edge and wit that made it so great. You can see the writers desperately trying to recreate it, but also to de-Harmon-ize it. I have to use my old analogy of the cover band. Watching S4 of Community is like watching a solid cover band. They’re decent, the music is pretty similar, the wardrobe is accurate, and while the singer is good, he can’t hit the notes exactly like the real singer and the band members themselves don’t look anything like the real guys. So while it might be an enjoyable concert, you can never shake the fact that you wish you were watching the real thing.
For me, this series ended in S3. I won’t be buying the S4 DVDs unless they pick their game up.
What really gnaws at me: either NBC & Sony thought Community could be salvaged to something more successful so they fired Dan Harmon or he was such an unbearable asshole they fired him. What I don’t get is this: why not bring him back to do a shortened 13 episode farewell season? I love the third season finale and thinks it acts as a perfect series finale if you choose to view it that way but I really wish Harmon had gotten to end the show his way.
I still hold out that FX or TBS will pick up a cancelled Community and reinstate Harmon.
Getting rid of FNL was such a great idea, wasn’t it?
This sounds like a job for… GOD COP
Bet they regret not hiring me now.
Time for Wednesday Night Cricket!
The answer is obvious: MOAR LENO.
“Honestly the best thing on NBC outside of Parks and Rec is Saturday Night Live”
I think these “best of SNL” and “SNL retrospectives” are going to become a regular weekly thing.
Maybe this is a good thing, guys. Can you imagine if NBC were to become a net for all the canceled shows of other networks? Anytime a show on FOX, ABC, FX, AMC, shit, even TNT and the CW flounders in the ratings, NBC can scoop them up to keep them on the air, and those ratings will be higher than anything else the network currently shows. It beats the hell out of casting a monkey as a lead character
Who’s up for Homonym?
Whose Homonym?
[www.youtube.com]
I would prefer Bitch Hunter.
NBC needs to rebrand itself as a network that exclusively airs classic Simpsons and Seinfeld episodes. No way in hell it does any worse
I made this point last week, this is absolutely what they should do.
Re-Runs of their greatest hits; Cheers, Seinfeld, etc.
On the bright side, doesn’t NBC own Univision?
Oops, think I might have made that up.
You’re probably thinking of the 30 Rock episode when Jack had them buy the Spanish language network so he could control the story lines of the soap opera Elisa’s grandmother watched.
they don’t own it but I think the same parent company owns them.
It’s like “NBC, look at your hot Latin brother and how well it’s doing! You have one job!!”
No, they own Telemundo. Even their Spanish-language affiliate gets trounced in the ratings.
You are thinking NBCUnivERSAL, which owns Telemundo.
I blame Jay Leno.
No, really, after the whole Tonight Show debacle is when things seemed to really tank for the network (they weren’t super great beforehand, but they still had some shows with decent 18-49 demo ratings). This is a train wreck that I really do enjoy watching.
That’s when I swore off NBC in general. Only watch Community and Parks and Rec online.
Is the issue that they have such a difficult to follow schedule? What happened to a show starting in September/October, running 12 episodes with a few rerun weeks every now and again, then doing the same thing again starting in January/February? Their schedule is impossible to understand with shows starting their seasons in February, or having 4 episodes, then nothing for 3 months while another shows airs. Then they blast through 4 new episodes of something in a week. I don’t watch NBC other than Thursday, but I have no clue when something is on. I’ll occasionally see my DVR light on and wonder what show NBC has decided to randomly throw into the schedule this week.
And so it begins. NBC wont go out in a bang but a wimper.
NBC will probably just get bought by someone and hopefully they’ll bring in a bunch of not stupid people to create something great.
I think your bias is showing. No way SNL is better than Community. SNL is terrible. Community is downgraded but still not an embarrassment
Yeah, at this point I’d rank NBC’s offerings something like:
1. Parks and Rec
2. Parenthood
3-7. late night infomercials
8. New Community
9-15. schadenfreude
16. SNL
Its still relevant and gets ratings and can put out a decent show now and then. That’s more than you can say for nearly its entire lineup.
The thing I find most amusing about NBC failing, the fact that CNN thought that hiring the guy that ran NBC into the ground was the right move to fix their craptastic network.
I just wish some other network would pull a TBS/Cougar Town thing and pick up Parks and Rec and Parenthood. Then once Community is taken behind the shed and Old Yellered I can be done with this awful network.
Well, aside from SNF. Hey! there’s an idea. Rebrand NBC as the SNF channel. And whenever a game isn’t on, they could just have Tony Dungy hypnotoading directly into the camera. Would probably blow away their current ratings.
So… The NFL Network, then?
BRING BACK CAROLINE IN THE CITY!
Shut it down! [i1081.photobucket.com]
Aside from Community, P&R, SNL and the Office, I’m not even aware of NBC’s existence. All the cool kids watch FX these days, anyway.
Well network TV in general is pretty bad. How many shows on CBS are even watchable let alone good? Community, Parks, Parenthood, and SNL (depending on the host) isn’t bad. Honestly which network can top that? Fox? The New Girl is merely okay now and American Dad is their only truly good show now anyways. ABC? Maybe. Scandal, Modern Family, and Suburgatory aren’t bad but outside of those the network is a fucking morass.
So yeah NBC kinda sucks. Yes it was dumb to fire Dan Harmon and turn Community into a less retarded laugh track show. Yes it was dumb not to give 30 Rock a bigger push and another season. However, it’s not like other networks have a slate of must see TV. For me must see TV (if not live very close) is pretty much:
Breaking Bad
HBO’s original series (Boardwalk, GoT, Veep)
Justified
SAMCRO
Parks
Shameless
Dexter (I can’t help it I’m loyal to the bastard and greatly anticipate how his story ends)
Community
30 Rock was probably there too, but other than that I can typically wait. I love Modern Family, Suburgatory, American Dad, and I’ll watch The Mentalist, The Good Wife, Parenthood, and a few other network dramas but I can wait for the DVDs or just watch them on Hulu/Netflix. At least NBC has a must see show.
yeh good point, CBS and ABC are so bad in general quality wise that they just get ignored here, they just so happen to be bad quality wise but better at catering towards whatever the hell “mass audiences” like for some reason.
I literally watch nothing on CBS, I think the last show I watched on CBS was that David Morse show Hack with Andre Braugher. Same goes for FOX, I was starting to get into the tuesday lineup of Raising Hope/Ben&Kate/Happy Endings and Don’t Trust the B, but both FOX and ABC murdered that, now I don’t even bother with Raising Hope which is all that’s left.
I still enjoy Modern Family and the bits of Suburgatory I catch here and there. There’s Happy Endings, but that’s probably not long for the network, outside of those shows and P&R/Community, that’s all I got for network tv.
Also Omar, you should give The Americans a try, I’m betting you’d enjoy the crap out of it.
The total lack of 30 Rock Shut It Down gifs is disappointing. My attempt to correct this injustice:
I love Grimm , Revolution and Dateline with Keith Morrison , other than that i pay no mind to NBC. For that fact I believe there is garbage on all networks. No quality shows anymore. NBC was dead wrong on Picking up Whitney which is garbage. Univision has dramatic telenovelas that end in 5 months short term commitment and you don’t feel obligated to see it for long time.
I think there is a ratings conspiracy against Comcast. Cuz the ratings don’t reflect the quality of shows. It’s a shame to say the least. Hang in there NBC. I’m still rooting for you. And it’s personal.