ABC Upfront/General News and Discussion: 2025-26

[opus]

You didn’t hear it from me, but rumor has it that ABC has jumped the shark.

[James28]

Originally Posted by opus

You didn’t hear it from me, but rumor has it that ABC has jumped the shark.

It's not just ABC. I sometimes feel that American broadcast television as a whole has jumped the shark right now, for the following reasons:

• The continued insistence of two-hour editions of both 20/20 and Dateline while focusing on true crime, which is literally a single subject.
• The all-season NBA Coast 2 Coast Tuesday on NBC (which doesn't need to be on any broadcast network at all).
• CBS's procedural shows feeling like they're exactly the same.
• FOX's current animation shows can't even have full seasons anymore because of all-season sports on Fridays and reality overload on primetime, even with the continued protection and year-after-year renewals of The Simpsons, Family Guy, and Bob's Burgers.
• The direction The CW's primetime schedule has gone into after Nexstar Media Group acquired the network.

[James28]

The new PI drama RJ Decker, starring Scott Speedman, will premiere on March 3, and air on Tuesdays at 10 pm. The Rookie will shift to Mondays at 10 pm after the fourth episode of its current eighth season on January 26.

Source: Deadline.

[Marcus2026]

ABC has announced their expected and poised renewals for next TV season, including Abbott Elementary being renewed for S6, the long-running Grey's Anatomy for S23 with an expected budget cut, 9-1-1 for S10, The Rookie for S9, High Potential for S3, Will Trent for S5, Shifting Gears for S3 and newbie 9-1-1: Nashville for S2.

https://deadline.com/2026/02/abc-can...ie-1236719454/

[icecream]

ABC has egg on their face, I bet whoever is in charge of reality casting gets fired. For the first time in franchise history The Bachelorette's entire season has been yanked just days before it would have premiered. The star they chose had a domestic violence video revealed. Which apparently had already been shown on her previous show The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives.

[Marcus2026]

Grey's Anatomy has been renewed for its 23rd season, with 2 cast members departing the show at the end of their current 22nd season: https://deadline.com/2026/03/greys-a...lOD8Rp7fWjt5pw

[icecream]

Donald Trump is now giving a primetime speech tonight at 9:00/8:00. As a result, tonight's new episode of The Greatest Average American has been pulled, will be a repeat joined in progress. Greatest Average American will now be new next Wednesday on April 8, which was originally a repeat. Shark Tank is now a repeat tonight as well, hadn't really checked but it was probably originally new. Scrubs and Abbott Elementary will still air new episodes in the 8PM hour, although ABC will lose some ad revenue from Abbott's usual two minute overrun that is no more tonight.

[James28]

ABC has just accepted a pitch from Fox. Fox Entertainment Studios, that is. It's a workaholic mom multi-camera comedy named The Dogwood that comes from Mom co-creator Gemma Baker.

Just the fact that it's from Fox Entertainment Studios (the production arm of the Fox Broadcasting Company that was established after losing its sister studio, 20th Century Fox Television, to The Walt Disney Company in 2019) is a perfect way to reignite the conversation on vertical integration on the American broadcast networks.

Source: Deadline.

[icecream]

Danielle Fishel is being wasted promoting reality. ABC should have her star in a new sitcom.

[Marcus2026]

ABC just recently renewed the Scrubs revival and Shifting Gears.

https://deadline.com/2026/04/scrubs-...th-1236876512/

[icecream]

My ABC affiliate is horribly run. Celebrity Jeopardy season finale is May 15. 12-14 are the three semifinal nights. 15 had originally been listed as the Jeopardy finale. But now that has been pushed to 1:07AM because of lousy baseball. They should have put the baseball game on My Network TV instead.

[Marcus2026]

To cap off the list of current scripted series, ABC just renewed RJ Decker for S2: https://deadline.com/2026/05/rj-deck...ng-1236887396/

[icecream]

Bad enough my affiliate is delaying the Celebrity Jeopardy finale to 1:06AM because of lousy baseball. While the game is final, stupid postgame coverage is still going on, delaying the start time even further. Game should have been put on My Network TV which doesn't have anything new, or NBC (owned by the same company here) where Happy's Place is done for the season.

[icecream]

Well, I'm shocked. When the loooong postgame finally ended, 21Alive joined their news in progress at 11:23 (almost 11:24) for the last 11-12 minutes. Jimmy Kimmel started on time, so Celebrity Jeopardy! should still air at 1:06AM.