Gaspin: "We're Going to Try to Rebuild NBC"

NBCU TV chairman talks with Marisa Guthrie about NBC's rookie-, drama-laden 2010-11 schedule

By Marisa Guthrie -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/16/2010 5:00:00 PM

Upfront Central: Complete Coverage from B&C

NBC has picked up a hefty total of 14 new shows -- the majority of them dramas -- for the 2010-11 season, a swing-for-the-fences schedule that executives hope will spring them from the fourth-place ratings basement. (See related: Upfronts 2010: NBC Orders 14 New Shows, Keeps Thursday as Single Night of Comedy )

It's a strategy that stands in stark contrast to a year-ago when NBC gave the 10 p.m. hour to Jay Leno in an ultimately failed attempt to remake the burdensome economics of primetime television.

"We probably went a little too far last year with trying to change the model all at once," NBC Universal Television Entertainment Chairman Jeff Gaspin told B&C.

Consequently, the network has spent at least 30% more on development for the 2010-11 season in a back-to-basics approach that emphasis big-ticket drama at 10 p.m.

"We're going to try to rebuild NBC," says Gaspin. "We will always look at the model that we're working within and make decisions accordingly. But at least this year we are definitely focused on rebuilding with high quality scripted content."

Monday will be pegged for action/adventure with Chuck in the 8 p.m. lead-off slot followed by The Event and Jerry Bruckheimer's Chase. The Biggest Loser and Parenthood will stay put on Tuesday. J.J. Abrams Undercovers will anchor Wednesday nights followed by Law & Order: SVU and latest spin-off Law & Order: Los Angeles (LOLA, for short).

Such an early timeslot will be a challenge for Undercovers, a spy thriller with a relatively unknown cast. And while NBC executives are hopeful the show is be strong enough to get enough viewers to the set at 8 p.m., they're also taking no chances and will throw a lot of promotion behind it.

Mercy and Trauma, which hung around longer than some of NBC's 2009 entries, have been canceled. The ax has also fallen on Heroes and Law & Order. But NBC primetime president Angela Bromstad said the network will talk with Heroes' Tim Kring and Law & Order's Dick Wolf about a appropriate send-offs for their respective programs.  

The network will not launch a new hour of comedy outside of its established laugher destination of Thursday night, as was expected. Instead, it will shift 30 Rock to 8:30 p.m. and give the plum post-Office 9:30p.m. slot to Outsourced. Community, one of only two returning scripted shows from NBC's 2009-10 season, will lead-off at 8 p.m. Parks and Recreation will return midseason.

30 Rock creator and star Tina Fey will reportedly rib NBC executives about moving her show to an earlier time period during the network's upfront presentation at the New York Hilton May 17.

But Gaspin said that 30 Rock has proven itself as "a solid performer" and besides, the show "has been able to take advantage" of a hefty Office lead-in for multiple seasons.

"So we had the confidence that it could move it without losing much of its audience," he said. (Perhaps the keyword here is "much.")

Likewise, NBC executives are confident that Park and Recreation can successfully weather a hiatus.

"We've seen that more time can actually lapse between the end of season and the beginning of the next without damaging a show," said Gaspin. "If we're careful and we protect the return of Parks and Recreation, we can continue to build an audience."

That strategy also allows for a steady stream of fresh comedy on Thursday, he added. The network also has multiple new comedies on the bench, including Perfect Couples and a single-camera comedy from Paul Reiser. And Gaspin did not rule out launching another hour of comedy later in the season.  

"We felt that Thursday was the best place to launch new comedy and at some point later this season we may look at the possibility of opening up another hour," he said.

Love Bites, an hour-long romantic anthology series from Sex and the City's Cindy Chupack, will air Thursdays at 10 p.m. The series boasts a large cast and stitches together vignettes on dating, sex and marriage. NBC executives are not calling it a "dramedy," rather they're calling it a "one-hour comedy."

Bromstad said she would be pleased if NBC managed "one or two breakout shows [next season]."

"Each year we look at improving upon the past," she said.

Added Gaspin, "There's a lot of measure of success in the broadest sense. I always look at how the industry does as a whole. And we'd like to do a little better than that."