Fall Television Season Network Preview 2006: NBC

NBC's big coup was to acquire the rights to air football, which it has not had in quite some time. They'll return to football with the rights to broadcast Sunday Night Football. Add to that a list of distinctive new shows which have received a lot of hype, both on the air with commercial spots and off the air with critical anticipation, and we could have a full return for NBC to the top of the rankings mountain. Returning shows which bring a lot of presence to a strong lineup which has few holes through the week. The Law and Order franchise, along with shows like The Office and Las Vegas will return, along with Scrubs, which is not slated yet in the season but is scheduled to return later in the season. Let's take a look at their lineups. New shows are in bold italics.

Sunday

7-8 PM: Football Night in America
8-11 PM: Sunday Night Football



Notes: NBC has never really consistently tried to compete with the other networks on Sunday night, obliging their competitions' dominance on this night. However, this may change without much effort. The NFL is one of the biggest commodities for a network in television, and this will make for interesting ratings wars. Fox and ABC will have to compete wit football directly for the first time as it will be on a national network instead of being on cable telvision. This, of course, will be different for the west coast because of the time difference in live events, so we'll have to see how NBC handles that situation. Football will be a big franchise for NBA in the Sunday night battle.

Monday