The network has picked up a comedy starring Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe and renewed first-year dramas ‘Brilliant Minds’ and ‘The Hunting Party.’
The addition of the NBA to NBC’s primetime lineup next season will bring about some changes to the network’s schedule — but the network is also making a few moves independent of that, including the launch of a new comedy block.
NBC, which last had rights to the NBA in 2002, is turning over Tuesday nights to pro basketball when the league’s season tips off on Oct. 21. A second night of NBA games will follow on Sundays in early 2026, after NBC’s NFL commitment ends. The NBA additions — Jeff Bader, NBCUniversal Entertainment’s president of program planning strategy, told reporters the NBA is “our biggest new show in the fall” — will reduce the footprint of the network’s entertainment programming next season and were a big reason why NBC canceled five series on May 9.
The October start for the league is also leading to something of a two-track schedule for NBC in the fall. Two-hour editions of The Voice and the Jimmy Fallon-led new unscripted series On Brand will air on Tuesday nights in September and early October, with On Brand also airing a second episode on Fridays to start the season. When the NBA starts, the Tuesday Voice will go away and On Brand will run on Friday nights only.
November will bring another change: NBC will launch a pair of one-hour comedy blocks on Mondays and Fridays, anchored by second-year shows St. Denis Medical (Monday) and Happy’s Place (Friday). They’ll be paired with … shows to be determined. The network has picked up The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, starring Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe and executive produced by Morgan’s 30 Rock co-star Tina Fey. It also has a pair of comedy pilots in Stumble, a mockumentary about a junior college cheerleading squad from writers Liz and Jeff Astrof; and an untitled show from Rutherford Falls creator Sierra Teller Ornelas and fellow writers Jackie Kaliiaa and Bobby Wilson about the staff of a Native community center in Oakland, California. NBC will choose two of those three to join St. Denis Medical and Happy’s Place in the late fall.
The network has also renewed two first-year dramas, Brilliant Minds and The Hunting Party, for full second seasons. Medical drama Brilliant Minds will return to the 10 p.m. Monday spot it held last fall, while The Hunting Party, a crime procedural, will follow Law & Order: SVU on Thursday nights. The Wednesday all-Chicago slate and Thursday’s two-hour Law & Order block remain intact. The lone remaining show on NBC’s bubble, Grosse Pointe Garden Society, is still awaiting word on its future.
After November NBC plans to ride with its schedule for the remainder of the season, save for the NFL/NBA swap on Sundays and something to fill the break between Voice cycles on Monday nights. The network will debut Surviving Earth, its natural history series follow-up to The Americas, sometime next season but hasn’t set its spot on the schedule yet.
“We’ll always be looking for other opportunities [in development], but the best thing that can happen to us is that all these shows work, and we can actually go back to having some full-season dramas,” Bader said. “One of the things that you know, we’re the reason that you’re seeing these sophomore shows. Brilliant Minds only had 13 episodes in its first season. The Hunting Party only had 10 episodes. We need to give these full seasons and really lean into them to really get them established.”
The Tuesday NBA games will be regional, with an 8 p.m. ET tipoff for viewers in the eastern half of the country and an 8 p.m. PT game for those out west. Both contests will stream live on Peacock across the country.
NBC’s fall lineup is below; all times are ET.
