Right here we’re, simply days away from the beginning of the 2023-24 tv season… and the key networks nonetheless aren’t 100% positive what they’re doing. Simply final week, a number of broadcasters scrambled to make much more final minute schedule modifications — on prime of different lately introduced tweaks. The autumn lineups that viewers tune into later this month will likely be remarkably totally different than those first introduced in Could.
At CBS, the Paramount+ Australia import “NCIS: Sydney” has out of the blue landed on our shores, and can run on Monday nights. Fox simply determined to push the return of its unscripted music gamer “I Can See Your Voice” to midseason and change it with “9-1-1: Lone Star” repeats on Tuesdays. The CW made the snap choice to swap its Monday and Thursday slates after ABC had created a last-minute Thursday evening “The Golden Bachelor”/”Bachelor in Paradise” one-two punch. And talking of the Alphabet community… earlier this week, it moved “Dancing with the Stars” to Tuesdays, which means it nonetheless hasn’t introduced its Monday evening plans past the primary evening of the TV season.
In response to Nielsen, the autumn TV season formally begins Sept. 25. Usually, the primetime lineups would have been locked months in the past, and fall advertising and marketing campaigns would already be effectively underway. Billboards and bus wraps touting new and returning sequence could be seen throughout Los Angeles and across the nation. Promos could be filling the airwaves and social media could be flooded with tune-in particulars. However in fact, fall 2023 just isn’t a standard season.
“It simply seems like virtually yearly one thing will get thrown at us that that may be a curveball,” says CBS chief advertising and marketing officer Mike Benson, who notes that it wasn’t that way back we have been coping with pandemic manufacturing delays that additionally led to a jumbled fall. “From a advertising and marketing perspective, it’s actually not about telling folks what they aren’t going to get. It’s extra about managing expectations as to what they will get.”
The twin WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes halted manufacturing on scripted sequence this summer season — forcing a pivot on the conventional broadcast networks towards fall schedules stuffed with actuality fare, recreation exhibits, sports activities, repeats and acquisitions from varied streaming and worldwide sources.
“We nonetheless have a fall schedule to advertise, so we’re nonetheless doing all of the issues,” says Shannon Ryan, Disney Leisure Tv president of promoting, whose oversight contains ABC. “We’re nonetheless creating the important thing artwork and we’re reducing the promos, and we’re scheduling the promos, and we’re posting the social belongings and we’re baking the media campaigns. We’re nonetheless doing the press junkets it’s simply with unscripted expertise.”
That’s additionally the view from Fox Leisure advertising and marketing president Darren Schillace, who notes that the September launch remains to be a go — it’s simply very totally different within the wake of the strikes.
“It’s not like this fall is on maintain, it’s only a heavy unscripted skew,” he says. “I take advantage of my mother as a spotlight group. If she’s heard about this strike, all people has. We’re very clear that the whole lot that we’re selling this fall new, new, new. You possibly can’t say sufficient. It’s important to reinforce these aren’t repeat exhibits.”
Apart from the truth that many of the networks are airing repeats — some greater than others. By way of a mixture of strategic planning and pure luck, NBC heads into fall with a schedule that the majority seems to be like its regular design.
“We’re actually uniquely positioned to make it really feel like fall is again,” she says. “I take a look at our slate as one of many solely locations the place new scripted dramas launching, so clearly we’re leaning into that. On condition that there’s much less competitors, the lanes are a bit bit clearer,” says Margaret Walker, SVP of NBC model technique and viewers progress.
The community received’t have new episodes its Dick Wolf-fueled “Regulation & Order” and “One Chicago” exhibits (it’s airing reruns of each), but it surely does have new episodes of returning sequence “Quantum Leap” and “Magnum P.I.,” along with new dramas “The Irrational,” with Jesse L. Martin, and the Shanola Hampton-led “Discovered.” Add in 4 (!) hours of “The Voice” (that includes new choose Reba McEntire), Sunday Night time Soccer and a brand new Saturday evening Large 10 school soccer package deal, and Walker likes the hand she’s been dealt.
“Loads of people are like, ‘are you not busy?’ However there are exhibits on our air, we’ve a variety of new stuff to launch,” Walker says. “So whereas the atmosphere wherein we’re working in presents distinctive challenges, it’s like the identical. We’ve bought a variety of instruments in our toolkit, and so whereas we’re not utilizing a few of these instruments, we’re full boar on all the opposite ones and it seems like an actual fall.”
Schillace notes that Fox additionally has new scripted episodes through its Sunday evening “Animation Domination” block, together with “The Simpsons,” “Bob’s Burgers,” “Household Man” and long-gestating Dan Harmon half-hour “Krapopolis,” which was initially slated to premiere final 12 months and has been promoted for over a 12 months. Unscripted returnees embody “The Masked Singer” and the Gordon Ramsay steady of meals exhibits — together with “Kitchen Nightmares,” with its first new episodes in a decade.
“We’re very fortunate, going into this fall, Fox is up 5% 12 months over 12 months and we’re beginning in a spot of positivity, in addition to having school soccer, professional soccer, the World Collection,” he says.
At CBS, the precedence is to maintain Sunday afternoon NFL a powerhouse, together with supersized 90-minute editions of “Survivor” and “The Wonderful Race” on Wednesdays. The Eye can be hoping to show viewers on to the worldwide variations of its in style franchises with “NCIS: Sydney” and the U.Okay. version of “Ghosts.” The schedule rounds out with a ton of actuality — after which repeats of Paramount Community’s “Yellowstone” on Sundays.
Benson is bullish on “Yellowstone” — though it ended final season as TV’s most-watched scripted present, he has stats that present it’s nonetheless an unknown commodity to his viewers. “80% of the CBS viewers has by no means seen an episode of ‘Yellowstone,’” Benson says. “We wish to remind the viewers that it’s not solely an outstanding present, but it surely’s a cultural phenomenon.”
CBS is creating an “NCIS Day” on Sept. 25 — the primary evening of the season — to advertise the franchise’s 20th anniversary. The Eye additionally has a brand new “Survivor” marketing campaign within the works and is unveiling a social media initiative dubbed “Hello, CBS.”
After which there’s ABC, the place “The Golden Bachelor” is a precedence. Ryan says plans embody screenings of the sequence in additional than 200 retirement communities, in addition to a partnership with USA Pickleball (sponsoring tournaments across the nation) and “golden low cost” offers for all ages (assume “senior reductions,” however for anybody) through partnerships like Uber Eats, Cinnabon and 1-800 Flowers.
“We’re working with these ‘grandfluencers,’ who’re these superb, pleasant folks that have large followings on Tik Tok and Instagram,” she says. “We’re making a golden glow-up Snapchat lens. We’re actually leaning in exhausting on that present, as a result of we really feel it has a possibility to herald an viewers similar to we’d on an everyday fall scripted present.”
The networks are doing all of this with an acknowledgement that they could have a heavier raise if and when their common scripted exhibits return in midseason. At Fox, Schillace says he has developed “continuity campaigns” to ensure folks don’t neglect about sequence like “The Cleansing Woman,” which aired its final unique on the finish of 2022. “That’s a very long time between seasons,” he says. “Again in our youth we’d have summer season repeats, and that’s not the case now. We’re very strategically discovering occasions of the 12 months to companion with Hulu, with our studios, in protecting a pulse on exhibits that will usually go quiet.”
Hulu additionally falls beneath Ryan’s oversight, giving her the chance to advertise each present and library ABC content material (in addition to exhibits which are produced by its sister studio).
“It’s a possibility to remind followers that they’ll begin from the start and rewatch their favourite exhibits, and compensate for episodes or exhibits that they could have missed through the season,” she says. “We’re utilizing the Hulu model to get folks to catch up or probably begin from the start, as a result of there received’t be these scripted fall exhibits coming in September, like they’re used to.”
(Consider all of this as a modern-day model of NBC’s notorious Nineties marketing campaign to advertise repeats: “When you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you!”)
The advertising and marketing execs are additionally having to take care of selling a few of their fall wares with out the assistance of expertise. Actuality hosts and contestants are nonetheless in a position to take part, since they’re beneath a distinct SAG-AFTRA contract, however there’s a restrict to how a lot folks really feel snug with doing proper now.
And the standard fall picture and promo shoots have been principally out of the query this time (no “mondo shoots,” as they’re known as within the biz), as are fall preview specials. “We tried to discover a totally different method,” Benson says. “We do should work by a few of the issues that we simply aren’t doing this 12 months.”
Schillace says he has labored out a number of situations for promote the remainder of the season as soon as manufacturing resumes. “I’ve 5 totally different plans based mostly on when the strike could finish,” he says. “Everybody’s bought their plan of assault. It’ll be purely ‘go’ mode.”