Joel told you this morning of Kevin Reilly's probable ouster from NBC, and now here's more news from The Peacock: they're getting rid of super-sizing.
It seems that the network has gotten a little bored of having the occasional 40 minute episode of their Thursday night lineup (My Name Is Earl, The Office, Scrubs, and 30 Rock). It's been going on for 10 years now (it started with Friends), but NBC President of Program Planning Vince Manze says that it's not novel anymore and "I don't think anyone here thinks, at this point, super-sizing often is good for the shows. We're going to do our best to not have to do it next year."
The network is, however, going forward with plans to air several hour-long eps of The Office this fall. If that's successful, maybe they'll try it with other shows?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-29-2007 @ 4:33PM
Darren said...
If you timed the shows, they weren't much longer then normal - they just had a lot more advertising in them!
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5-29-2007 @ 4:50PM
Galley said...
Yeah, how else could they sell these "super-sized" episodes for syndication if they weren't really normal length ones padded with 10 extra minutes of commercials?
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5-29-2007 @ 6:00PM
TVGenius said...
Maybe they realized that instead of people TiVo-ing their shows, they didn't record the SS ones since they conflicted with the other shows that viewers actually cared about.
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5-29-2007 @ 8:21PM
paintist said...
But creating a Heroes spin-off series doesn't count as "super-sizing"?
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5-30-2007 @ 5:10AM
n.p. said...
i don't know what you guys are smoking but the supersized episodes were longer by about 8 - 9 minutes of extra show on top of the predicted extra commercials. and i wish i knew what these guys are thinking but i loved the supersized office episodes. more office = good thing.
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5-30-2007 @ 8:11AM
Deezul said...
Personally, I'd love to see a network just admit that they only have 3 really good comedies, and put them all up at 40 minutes each. There always has been one not so great comedy in the NBC Thursday night block. Not since the Cosby Show/Family Ties/Cheers/Night Court block has there been 4 good ones.
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5-30-2007 @ 1:57PM
BStu said...
Well, super-sizing most of their shows just felt unnecessary, but The Office really benefited from being able to expand the story. I'm glad they still see that the Office can use ocassional forays into extended time, but I actually think 40 minutes is the sweet spot for them, not 60. But I guess it allows them to still do the re-edit reruns again which struck me as a novel solution to the rerun fatigue issue. Maybe they could just do an Office spin-off like last summer's web series, with the focus on the background characters. If the Heroes experiment works, The Office is a pretty good way to extend the idea.
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