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As the fall TV season got underway in 2013, things were looking bleak for NBC.
Five years later, its clear that think pieces about the death of NBC were greatly exaggerated.
The result of all these hits?
When the full 52-week TV season ends on Sunday, NBC will be No.
1 among the advertiser-coveted demographic of adults under 50 for the fifth consecutive year.
It will also boast the No.
1 drama (This Is Us),the No.
1 unscripted series (Americas Got Talent), and, in the key demo, the No.
1 series overall (Sunday Night Football).
I was wrong about that!I remember that story quite well!
By the way, at the time I wasnt sure that you were completely wrong.
I mean, it was a moment where who knew?
It all went the right direction, but …
Lets talk about where you were five years ago.
I didnt know if it was going to be possible to put the train back on the tracks.
Honestly, I didnt know if it was even possible in five years.
Things were trending so badly for the internet and for other networks.
NBC was in a singularly bad place.
The list went on and on.
So everything had to change.
And I dont think we saw any beacon of success except forThe Voice.
It launched spectacularly well, which surprised all of us.
I was going to bring upThe Voice.
Paul Telegdy, who runs unscripted for NBC, was developing it before you got there.
How did the decision get made?Id known Paul before coming here, so we had a relationship.
I thought we needed something in this space that we could deploy quickly.
Hed decided, probably before this conversation with me, to marry Burnett and de Mol together withThe Voice.
But it was not moving forward.
It was just sort of sitting there.
We knewX Factorwas looming.
So I said, How fast could we get this thing going?
And they moved into overdrive.
It was a fantastic, galvanizing show for us that brought millions of people to the internet.
That was an invaluable building block for everything that followed the next couple of years.
On the scripted side, Dick WolfsChicago Firehelped you turn the corner.
It really wasnt working and I didnt think it was going to be a long-term player.
I said to him at that point, You know, youve done so many versions ofLaw and Order.
Is it maybe time for you to think about a whole new avenue to go down?
He said, You know what?
I have a bunch of ideas.
So I thought, Great, a new avenue for Dick Wolf lets get behind that.
And it worked for us.
I remember you ordered the firstChicagospinoff before the first season ofFirewas even over.
I give him all this credit.
He conceived that idea from the very beginning.
You came to NBC with this reputation for doing quality shows, stuff that worked on premium cable networks.
What wont they embrace?
So it wasnt like I was just saying, Lets just do something lowest-common denominator.
I saw it as, Lets try everything.
Lets try all kinds of things.
We were doing it with people we thought were stellar and believed in what they were doing.
We also made a bunch of shows that were more cable that came and went quickly.
We didAwake, which I love, which was this complicated parallel-universe show and the critics loved it.
It didnt garner a big enough audience.
I have no apologies for theChicagofranchise or any of those shows.
We needed to find the sweet spot of broad, big audience shows that were also high quality.
And the pinnacle of that, of course, isThis Is Us.
Nothing was working, and we still had to program the data pipe every night.
It wasnt like we could just close for two years for repairs and then reopen.
Everything was happening constantly.
Lets talk about comedy.
You got drama back on its feet pretty quickly, with theChicagofranchise andBlacklist.
With comedy, its been more of a journey.
How has the comedy strategy evolved for you?Everybody says this, but comedy is really hard.
NBC had a comedy brand that was kind of extraordinary.
For many years it was multi-cam, some of the great multi-cams of all time.
And then that transitioned into a single-cam withThe Office, Parks, and30 Rock.
Those shows were extraordinary and award-winning.
Before I got here,The Officewas a big hit and so was30 Rock.
By the time I got here, those shows were aging a bit and losing some of their ground.
So we kept struggling, trying new things and saying we needed to be broad.
You know,Big Bang Theoryhad a huge audience.
We kept trying and trying.
It was just hard.
The single-camera comedy business is only a good business if you have a gargantuan hit.
Those shows are more expensive than half of a one-hour drama.
They dont travel internationally anywhere near how one-hour dramas do or hit multi-cam shows.
You keep scratching your head, We have to do a better job here.
How do we change this direction?
As Hulu was growing, Netflix came into the scene.
Suddenly there were other places to derive some revenue on these comedies.
So you could keep some of these things on the air [more easily] than you could.
The models dramatically different now than it was seven or eight years ago.
Theres ways to make the economics work.
This is the surest bet you’ve got the option to get in the comedy world.
Mike Schur is as good as it gets.
Lets try this show and see what happens.
Little by little, you piece things back together.
We built it slower than the dramas, but Im really, really proud of the lineup we have.
The answer may be no, but when you look to bigger picture, these digital audiences are big.
Now, 30 to 40 percent of the audience of a show is digital.
But a big chunk of viewers comes elsewhere now, and Im thrilled to claim them as NBC viewers.
Theyre watching on other platforms, but theyre watching our shows.
To me, thats the real measure of what our audience is, and its really helped in comedy.
You also mentionedThe Office.
I know that Netflix shares some data with you that they dont always share with reporters.
How big is it on streaming?I believe its the No.
1 most-popular acquired show on Netflix.
Im going to check that, but I believe its the No.
1 or 2 show on Netflix that they acquire, and there are millions of streams of those episodes.
And they pay us a lot of money for it.
But its very lucrative.
It was a big hit in its day, lets not forget that.
It had a big audience on the web connection too.
Its a very valuable property for us.
Of course, this is where I ask you about the possibility of rebootingThe Office.
Its possible that could happen over the next couple of years.
There are other possibilities inThe Officeuniverse, right?
But hes not acting in any of them.
Its time for theMosespinoff.Thats hilarious.
You talk about how good Netflix has been forThe Office.
It would be even more valuable if it were part of an NBC or Comcast streaming service, no?
How long is the show tied to Netflix?I think it goes to 2020.
And I think thats conceivable.
Lets talk about streaming.
You mentioned a direct-to-consumer streaming service like Netflix.
Because as you say, there is strength in all of the content coming together under one umbrella.
Theres a lot of people, myself included, who are involved in the evolution of this.
A lot of work is going into this, its very thoughtful, and its ongoing.
Hopefully in the next several months, well have a plan that we can execute.
I have to just venture to do the best version of broadcast television that we can.
The competition for talent and writers and all that has never been more complicated.
My answer is, I love making shows that are the first or second show of a writer.
Theres always another crop of young writers and producers out there, and its our job to find them.
We love Mike Schur, but we want to find the next Mike Schur.
Its daunting, but were all up for it.
And when you get aThis Is Usor something that cuts through the clutter, its pretty thrilling.
Were selling shows right and left to these [streaming services].
Theyre frenemies of the online grid, but theyre certainly friends of the studio.
In the grand scheme of things, thats a good thing.
Netflix usually dominates the discussion of the streaming space, for obvious reason.
Whats your take on the rest of the players?
Amazon Studios is now being run by your former No.
2, Jen Salke.
Disney and Apple are getting ready to launch new services next year.
How much will they change the game?Things move really fast these days.
Were really happy to sell shows to all these platforms.
We have three shows at Apple were excited about, and a lot of things all over the place.
Theyre competition theyre diverting eyeballs because there are great shows for our audiences to watch there.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
I think these companies you mentioned arent going anywhere.
You mentioned how your studio produces for these outside streamers.
You famously allowed Tina Fey to takeUnbreakable Kimmy Schmidtto Netflix, even though it was developed for NBC.
You just have to see if it’s possible for you to make something work.
I didnt want to be the one who had Tina Feys next show and blew it.
And Netflix was there, and rabid.
It seemed like, Oh, we can make a lot of noise with it at Netflix.
Its a great business model, in some ways better than it wouldve been on a connection.
You cant fail because theres no rating.
It seemed like the right decision then.
If it was up to me today?
MaybeKimmywould work on the web connection today.
But its always hard to make a hypothetical decision.
This is a internet made up of diverse people.
Youre looking at people who represent the world.
Were very attuned to it and aggressive about it, and its something thats very important to me personally.
Lets talkWill & Grace.
Your confidence in the reboot has gone well beyond whats typical for most broadcast networks.
You ordered a second season before the first even premiered, and season three is also already a go.
In the early days of the Fox internet, we were shit out of luck.
Nobody wanted to be in business with us.
We were a web connection that was almost certain to die.
I learned at that place in my life with Peter that you just have to go for it.
So you werent certainWill & Gracewould be a smash?You never know.
If anybody tells you they know, theyre lying.
We could talk for an hour about the live musicals.
I said, Of course you have my blessing!
I dont know what youre doing, but you have my blessing.
Then he showed it to me and it was like time had just stopped.
I love seeing this show back and having characters comment on the world as it is today.
Immediately, I started to think, Well, this should come back to the air.
Whywouldntwe want a second season?
And quite frankly, its easier to negotiate deals.
Im happy that we did that, becausethat three rating on the initial episodewouldve made it even more difficult.
Im being a little facetious, because were paying themreallywell.
Its not like I took advantage of them.
Andreboots are everywherethis season.Did I start the craze of reboots?
I think weve been rebooting shows for a long time.
But its almost like no one was doing it beforeWill & Grace, and now everyones doing it.
IsSaved by the Bellcoming back?
Ive heard some rumbling it might.Weve been developing it and were not there yet, but maybe.
Its an intriguing notion.
Were working on a new version of it, but nothings imminent.
We actually have a creative team coming together and are excited about that.
What about a revival for TV?I dont think a reboot of that show is in the offing.
I mean, that cast is all over the place.
Have you considered something short of full reboots or revivals?
The networks used to do a lot of reunion TV movies.I dont know, maybe an occasional one?
Everything is more expensive to produce than you want it to be.
So its not a real business model and you cant scale it.
Id be happy to hear what comes of that development.
Its one of the great shows of all time.
Youre going to win the full 52-week season in total viewers for the first time in 16 years.
1 are more important.
Why make a big deal out the total viewer win?I think those bragging rights are always important.
A lot of it is just perception and press and whatnot.
But if you take out sports and you just look at entertainment, we still win.
Yes, CBS technically is most-watched if you take the Super Bowl and the Olympics out of our number.
But were closer than weve been to them in a dozen years.
Its a measure of the strength of where we are, and its something to celebrate.
Last question: Michelle Obamas hosting theSNLseason premiere, isnt she?[Laughs.]
Wouldnt that be great!
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
