An article in The New York Times this week describes how NBC is going to switch to a year-round format in the development and introduction of new television content, doing away with the need for pilot season, upfronts, and the annual tradition of the fall television season.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/business/media/20adco.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin
This move isn’t quite as radical as NBC or the article might have us believe– many other networks have tinkered with introducing shows at odd times of the year (see the post in the entertainment bleekly archive about “mid-season replacements.”) However, it still represents a shift in the industry from a major player and I’ll be interested to see if any other big networks follow suit. Some have speculated that NBC is just sour grapes over a lack of quality programming and are making a move to shake things up. This could be aimed mostly at maintaining good relations with their primary advertisers, already made wary by the repercussions of the strike. Time will tell.
