Broadcast TV Feels Smaller Than Ever — And the Fall Schedules Prove It

Once upon a time, there was genuine buzz surrounding upfronts week.

Broadcast networks like ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, and The CW’s star-studded events found network executives and talent selling the next wave of content.

It was an event that seemed exclusive and alluring, and it delivered a strong sense of what each network had in store for the coming season.

Over the last few years, the traditional pilot season and upfronts have felt like an afterthought, with scripted TV largely taking a backseat.

Now that ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC have announced their plans for fall 2026 — and beyond — I can confidently say that I’ve never been less enthusiastic about what’s on the horizon.

It’s not news that traditional TV ratings have cratered in recent years, thanks in large part to changing viewer habits.

With viewership so fragmented in the streaming age, monetizing it has proven difficult.

Nowadays, TV shows generate the most interest post-airdate on streaming services, and that’s not going to change.

You can’t offer viewers the convenience of watching TV on their own terms and then take it away.

So, the new normal on the broadcast networks is to scale back on scripted offerings and make unscripted and sports a big focus.

Broadcast TV Networks Need to Make Money

The harsh reality is that networks will follow whatever makes them the most money, and for the most part, that is no longer scripted TV.

Credit where credit’s due: CBS is the only network that still feels like a traditional network, with scripted content taking up five nights of the fall schedule.

With Paramount Global under new leadership, there was word that scripted would be scaled back significantly.

But it truly feels like CBS believes that scripted TV is the backbone of a successful fall slate.

I’m still trying to make sense of the reduced episode orders for some of its shows because, honestly, the NCISes didn’t deserve to get such deep cuts.

That said, if it allows more scripted series overall to air during the 2026-27 season, then I’m all for it.

The number of live-action scripted shows on the CBS fall schedule (14) is a stark contrast to FOX, which has three.

FOX went through an overhaul of sorts in 2019 when it became an independent broadcaster, so the on-air numbers are far more crucial than those of the other networks.

For that reason alone, I totally get why it has gone for a mostly unscripted fall schedule.

However, it feels like a missed opportunity not to premiere either new drama, Baywatch or The Interrogator, in the fall.

The decision completely ruined the fall schedule because one in the fall and one at midseason should have been the rule.

Heck, the network could have even premiered Baywatch in August, when there are no scripted shows on broadcast networks nowadays.

It feels like Baywatch has been a constant news cycle in recent months, and once production wraps on the opening season, the headlines will die down.

This would have been a great opportunity to strike while the iron is hot.

While I’m disappointed with how FOX is treating scripted, NBC has totally lost me.

NBC Ruined a Great Pilot Season

Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about how NBC was bringing back the magic of pilot season with a raft of shows in the works.

So, you can only imagine my surprise when four of the eight series were scrapped. Honestly, all eight series sounded like they could have been hits.

But I genuinely can’t believe the network passed up the opportunity to have David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel on the network together.

Boreanaz’s The Rockford Files reboot secured a pilot order, while Deschanel’s Key Witness got the pink slip.

If there were any problems with Key Witness, they could have been ironed out after the upfronts. It’s not like networks are in a rush to get shows on the air these days.

The consensus since NBC’s upfronts presentation is that all its pilots came in well, but the issue was finding a place for them.

Wouldn’t it have made a bit more sense to trim the episode orders of the shows that got picked up to make some space for a few more?

I mean, it wouldn’t be silly, given that most new shows don’t get a second season nowadays.

Then there’s ABC, the Disney-owned network, which went with minimal changes, largely because it renewed every single one of its 2025-26 TV shows.

That’s unprecedented nowadays, but it also took away a lot of the surprise of what shifts mean for the returning shows.

The most ballsy move is, of course, shunning High Potential to midseason. I get the sentiment that only a handful of procedural episodes aired last fall due to inconsistent scheduling.

That probably hurt the show, but I think what will hurt the series more is having so many months off the air entirely.

As things stand, CBS gets the most props for actually investing in scripted.

NBC, while I’m mad about some promising pilots falling by the wayside, is still investing a lot of time in scripted programming, at least compared to ABC and FOX.

What are your thoughts on scripted TV getting scaled back over the last few years?

Do you think it’s the beginning of the end, or are you enjoying having fewer shows on your watchlist?

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