Tuesday brought some good news and some bad news for NBC’s roster of new series.
On the positive side, comedies “Up All Night” and “Whitney” have received full season orders. Given the fairly-low ratings standards for NBC’s comedies, neither order is surprising, although they did come faster than some expected.
That is particularly true in the case of “Whitney,” which bled quite a bit of its premiere audience for week two. Many expected NBC to wait a few more weeks to see some stabilization.
“Up All Night” is far from a ratings winner, but with its high-profile cast and decent performance given its difficult task of having to open at a night at 8PM, there was no way it would miss out on a full first season.
— In some potentially-bad news, NBC announced that “Rock Center with Brian Williams” will take over the Monday at 10PM timeslot begining October 31.
Poorly-rated new series “The Playboy Club” currently occupies that timeslot. NBC did not officially announce the show’s cancellation, but the scheduling shakeup is not a promising sign.
Update: “Playboy” has officially been pulled. “Prime Suspect” re-runs will air in the slot until the Brian Williams newsmagazine debuts.