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NBC sets 'Hannibal' premiere for Thursday trouble spot in April
Hannibal Lecter drama will try to succeed where many have failed
Mads Mikkelsen of "Hannibal"
Credit: NBC
NBC has scheduled one of its most anticipated new dramas in one of its most challenged time slots.
Bryan Fuller announced on Twitter on Thursday (February 14) that his Thomas Harris semi-prequel "Hannibal" will take over NBC's ratings-challenged Thursday 10 p.m. time slot starting on April 4.
NBC subsequently confirmed the April 4 premiere date to HitFix.
The former "E.R." time slot most recently devoured "Do No Harm" after only two episodes, as the medical drama joined such recent speedy time period failures as "Awake," "The Firm," "Prime Suspect" and, on the unscripted front, "Rock Center with Brian Williams," which avoided cancellation despite consistently dismal ratings.
NBC ordered "Hannibal" last year without even seeing a pilot. Scripted by Fuller ("Pushing Daisies"), the thriller traces the early relationship between profiler Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) and the brilliant Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) well before the events depicted in the novel "Red Dragon" and its two adapted features.
The "Hannibal" pilot was directed by David Slade, who also directed "Awake," so he knows a thing or two about NBC's Thursday 10 p.m. struggles.
A long-time member of the TCA Board and a longer-time blogger of "American Idol," Dan Fienberg writes about TV, except for when he writes about movies or sometimes writes about the Red Sox. But never music. He would sound stupid talking about music.
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Login or create a HitFix account Login Signupchris_bowyer
February 14, 2013 at 9:20PM EST Reply to CommentIs it really that the spot's trouble, or just that they've put bad shows there? I'm not understanding why this is a vote of no confidence, so much as a "Curse of NBC Thursdays at 10:00 PM" thing. They've blown it, but I'm not sure what that means anything in this slot is doomed. It's considered a strong slot on other networks, yes?
dan Chris - "Awake" was a tremendous show. "Southland" has been reasonably successful and well-regarded on TNT. "The Firm" was based on a fairly well-known property and featured a reasonably well-known leading man. "Prime Suspect" was an established brand with an established star and reasonable reviews. Any one of those shows could, theoretically, have worked. None did. So... Who knows? All it means is that the slot is doomed until it isn't, which is the same as ABC's Thursday 8 p.m. slot, among other Death Slots...
February 14, 2013 at 9:30PM EST-Daniel
gco211 Why is Southland on that list? While it was cancelled then saved because the 10:00 spot was unavailable, it had been previously renewed because it put up respectable (well, NBC respectable) numbers at 10 and earned renewal well ahead of the upfronts.
February 14, 2013 at 11:26PM ESTIf NBC had read the tea leaves a little better and sensed that the 10:00 hour might be open at midseason following the Leno debacle, TNT might never have gotten the show.
dan GCO211 - That's *somewhat* a misremembering of what happened with "Southland" (but only somewhat). The show started off respectably, but ratings had already plummeted by the time it finished its first season and it was stumbling with around 5-ish million viewers in its last episodes that season. Yes, NBC lost the 10 p.m. hour because of Leno, but there was a reason "Southland" was scheduled for Friday nights that fall. "Southland" had gone from a slam-dunk early renewal to a borderline bubble show between that early renewal and the end of its season.
February 14, 2013 at 11:50PM ESTAll I'm saying is that the drop in the 10 p.m. hour between what ER was doing in its last seasons and the untenable position NBC is in now *began* under the watch of "Southland." Jay Leno then salted the Earth. But other 10 p.m. slots on NBC's schedule have variably recovered from that. But even if NBC hadn't had Leno, I'd wager the network would have thought it had a better Thursday 10 p.m. alternative to "Southland," however wrong it might have turned out to be.
-Daniel
gco211 Dan, it had seven episodes. It didn't have time to develop the kind of trend you're remembering. In fact, Wikipedia tells me only one episode was below six million viewers (the next lowest was 6.39 million) let alone hovering around 5 million I think you might be misrembering a bit.
February 15, 2013 at 12:20AM ESTI don't disagree with your premise that it's become a bad spot post-ER, but Southland was not a part of that problem. Its later episodes were in the low 2's in May (with the one episode exceptoin, hardly outside of the norm for that time of the year even for ER in its later seasons.
dan GCO211 - Off to Wikipedia myself! So, the in-season airings for "Southland" went 9.9 million, 9.6 million, 8.4 million, 6.7 million, 6.5 million and 4.6 million (the episode I was remembering). That's a trend. The seventh episode bounced back to 6.4 million, but looking back to my ratings story, that was the day after the end of the season, so it was against reduced competition.
February 15, 2013 at 12:35AM ESTAnd the demo numbers were down to right around a 2 for the last in-season airings and, as you say, under a 2 (a 1.7) for the valley. From our perspective now? NBC would kill for those numbers. From their perspective then? Even without Leno, "Southland" was going to be shifted away from Thursdays at 10 because that was still NBC's Cadillac slot and "Southland" wasn't succeeding. Did it *fail*? We can argue. But if it was the first show that didn't succeed in that time slot, I'm gonna stand by saying it was the start of the problem.
-Daniel
gco211 Agree to disagree. It's a trend, but one that is correlative to way too many other trends to draw your conclusions. Shows fade in May and fade post premier, nothing in there was alarming, as you suggested.
February 15, 2013 at 12:50AM ESTI don't know how I got on this rant though, I don't even watch Southland (it's a fine show from what I've seen). It just seemed like a strange outlier, though looking back on the fact that you also called Prime Suspect an "established brand," I may have also missed some intended exaggeration in your original post.
dan GCO211 - Nobody was ranting. Just two people having a civil comment section discussion. And I probably could have or should have put "established brand" in quotes with "Prime Suspect." NBC figured it was, at least. The original commenter asked if the shows that haven't succeeded post "ER" were just bad shows or the wrong shows. And my point was that all manner of shows of all manner of qualities have failed to hit in the slot...
February 15, 2013 at 12:55AM EST-Daniel
gco211 Oh, agreed. I meant ranting in more of a self-deprecating, "how the heck did this conversation take this turn" type of manner.
February 15, 2013 at 1:08AM ESTA several post discussion of Southland's reason for leaving the air in 2009 is surprisingly interesting today, and perhaps made all the better for knowing how NBC faired post-Leno.
February 15, 2013 at 1:52PM ESTThe thing I'm getting at is: why assume there's something wrong with the slot, rather than the shows put there? Other networks don't find it to be a death sentence, yeah? Isn't it kind of superstitious to attribute the failures there to anything other than the programming decisions?
Sara
February 14, 2013 at 9:57PM EST Reply to CommentThe fact that it's going up against two other ratings successes--Scandal and Elementary--also doesn't bode well. I hope it performs well, because I'm intrigued by this and it's been a while since I could say that about a network drama.
John
February 15, 2013 at 12:35AM EST Reply to CommentAw, man! There is NO WAY NBC will have enough time to adequately promote this, plus it's going straight into a troublesome slot.
Hello, late season burn off theatre. They must Bob Greenblatt must really dislike Bryan Fuller.
dan John - With "The Voice" returning on March 25, NBC will have two weeks of three hours apiece with an actual captive live-viewing audience to promote "Hannibal" as aggressively as they desire to. *If* they want to saturation-bomb "Hannibal" ads and *if* they do it correctly, that ought to be enough time, with an additional couple weeks of ads leading up to it. I think the time slot is still a problem, but I think promotion should be OK if NBC's promo team is up to the task. That's a pretty big "if."
February 15, 2013 at 12:39AM EST-Daniel
John I suppose that's true, and "Hannibal" may be enough of a name-brand that the promotion actually sticks, too. Though I wouldn't automatically assume "Voice" audiences are ideal potential "Hannibal" viewers, stranger things have happened.
February 15, 2013 at 12:43AM ESTPart of me does sometimes wonder though if NBC (or Greenblatt) has been doubting the deal it made with Fuller. He's an unrepentant maker of niche programming, on a network desperately seeking broad hits. Was Fuller's deal done pre-Greenblatt?
dan John - Greenblatt was definitely responsible for shepherding "Hannibal"... and "Mockingbird Lane," I guess. So... I have no clue what he's thinking about the relationship with Fuller, honestly. And I liked "Mockingbird Lane."
February 15, 2013 at 12:48AM ESTAnd "Voice" audiences aren't a great match with "Hannibal," but they're still eyeballs and they're all NBC's got. Even if this were the fall, it's pretty well-established that Sunday Night Football is only a so-so promotional platform, so NBC's gotta take what it's got. And what it's got is The Voice. So Shakira and Usher are gonna be Hannibal Lecter's saviors... Maybe.
-Daniel
John Oh, I liked Mockingbird Lane a whole lot. I'm just pretty sure that we have Greenblatt on recorded as liking it...less so.
February 15, 2013 at 12:52AM ESTSpeaking of liking, has anyone actually seen a pilot or screener of this thing, or is NBC playing it pretty close to the vest?
dan John - Nobody's seen a darned thing other than that foreign teaser trailer that's up somewhere. NBC only put up these few images a couple days ago. They're playing this one close to the vest. Of course, they hoped that "Do No Harm" would succeed, in which case I don't have a clue when they were hoping to premiere "Hannibal."
February 15, 2013 at 12:57AM EST-Daniel
bitchstolemyremote
February 15, 2013 at 1:14PM EST Reply to CommentNot excited for the timeslot, but ecstatic that the show is debuting in April rather than the summer! Have been looking forward to this one for a long, long time!