Just wanna weigh in on the changes in the schedule, I see a lot of worried posts floating about.
You gotta remember that to networks shows are products, they get stacked on the shelves like a supermarket does. Cheap and/or low-quality/or lesser known ones get hidden high up, or at the bottom. Expensive or well-known ones get places on eye-level, or easy to reach places. When the former starts getting more known and starts selling better, prices can go up, and its shelve-space moves to a better place as well.
GG’s current slot is not one on eye-level, Sunday night at ten just isn’t. You know what is? Thursday’s at 9. That’s a huge promotion for a show. “But maybe they just try to bump the linear ratings, because it’s mid-tier now?’ It could be a component, but remember that shows are products. Networks sell commercials around certain shows, and ads cost more at 9 on Thursdays (30 seconds could cost up to 250.000 dollars, to give some perspective). It would be foolish to put a show on that slot that you don’t trust to deliver on the viewers, after all, that’s a promise you make to the people buying the ad-space.
So why move? While GG’s linear ratings are decent, its streaming ratings are absolutely massive. As you can read in this article. Episode 4x01 scored ratings of 1.87 million in the 18-49 demographic (that the demographic everybody wants, it’s the most marketable) on first broadcasting. But in the following seven days it gained another 1.6 million in delayed and digital viewing, totaling it to almost 3.5 million. If you add in the digital platforms Hulu and NBC’s own platform it adds on 2 million more, getting it to 5.5 million in the first week after viewing. GG scores online the most – it has the ratings, just not solely on TV and not it it’s current slot.
And let’s not forget that Good Girls dominated the Netflix streaming chart for Feb 15-21 (when the third season came on) with an astounding 1.08 billion minutes. That’s insane. It makes for a very marketable product, again.Â
Olympics? The opening ceremony is on July 23rd, so it makes sense that the regular schedule has to be jumbled a bit with all the current shows going on. If you remember from early 2021, the initial air date for GG was supposed to be February 14th, but it got delayed to March 7th. They also had a bit of a delay in production around then, so it’s not surprising that we’re going to have 2x a double episode. After all, these schedules get planned well in advance, and the Olympics is an event we’ve known the date for for a while. The running productions like GG (or any other) could encounter some COVID-setback, pushing the schedule inwards like an accordion if they start later than intended.
How about that hiatus? There’s an hiatus between May 16th and June 24th, which isn’t a surprise if you ask me. Currently Law & Order: SVU takes the Thursday slot, and it still has the finale on June 3rd, and Manifest (their lead-in)  has a finale on June 10th. Maybe they want to spread that out a little? I can’t be completely sure, but I can imagine if SVU or Manifest has some production delay they might want to dam that in with a few more weeks in between?Â
Another thing I saw is that NBC will cover a lot of golf (USGA) in May and June, which will probably be a factor in the change up in schedule as well (after all – product is purchased – the live broadcasting, so they have to broadcast it when it’s scheduled to).Â
Honestly, I’m pretty excited about the move. Clearly NBC sees something positive in rescheduling GG to the Thursday 9PM slot, if they didn’t feel like it could land it’s an easy move to a later (like Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday 10PM, where current shows have their finale as well in the now-scheduled GG hiatus). I’d agree that it might be a bit of a gamble, but rescheduling kind of always is. You pick something with potential to draw a larger audience (after all, SVU has – on average – 2.5x GGs ratings live) and give it opportunity to grow. I can’t imagine they didn’t survey it – perhaps a large chunk of people said they’d watch it live if it was on an earlier time or other day – justifying its announced promotion.
Could it still be cancelled? Well, can’t exactly look in NBCs head. But it kind of depends what this network values most. It’s hard to draw in a younger audience as a TV Network in these days, and GG certainly does that – the bulk of that is just not live/linear. Production-wise it’s a safe choice (Lets hope we don’t get another COVID-wave, but if we do) it’s shot on the Universal lot making it a very controlled environment.
If you have any questions, or if it’s unclear please ask! :)
