ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY – NBC is reversing one of the biggest scheduling shake-ups of the year.
After announcing to advertisers earlier this month that its breakout hit This Is Us will move from Tuesdays to Thursdays for its sophomore season this fall, NBC has decided to change its mind.
This Is Us will instead stay right where it is — at Tuesdays at 9 p.m.
Sources say the main reason for the decision change is that the show’s serialized storytelling would have been interrupted by NFL football coverage. Back on Tuesdays, the show will have a continuous run of 9 or 10 episodes. In the first season, NBC didn’t have more than 5 episodes in a row before a pre-emption, so apparently, they want to stick to roll-out plan that clearly is not broken.
Of course, NBC knew about its NFL schedule before the upfronts too, so the reversal is still a bit curious. Fall schedules can and do change between upfronts and the fall, but usually not so quickly or dramatically as this. “We went back and forth about [moving This Is Us to Thursday],” NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt told reporters earlier this month. “There’s a case to be made for keeping the show where it was. While it’s a little risky, there’s a bigger case to be made about redoing Thursday night.”