ABC is drastically lowering its number of new TV series this fall season, and says the strategy shake-up is more ‘fair to viewers’

ABC is releasing just three new scripted series this fall TV season, compared to seven last year.
The broadcast network, under new ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke, plans to invest in fewer new shows to prioritize promoting the few that stand out, as well as ABC’s returning series.
Networks don’t have the budgets to market all their new shows properly, Burke said at a press event on Tuesday. "In this cluttered marketplace, it’s not fair to the shows; it’s not fair to viewers."
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ABC is taking far fewer shots on new TV shows this fall.

The US broadcast network announced just three new scripted series for the upcoming fall TV season, with another three shows coming midseason. During the 2018-2019 TV season, ABC launched seven new series in the fall and four midseason, the company said.

"This year, we’re not trying to jam [viewers] with too many new messages and too many new shows to watch," Karey Burke, who became president of ABC Entertainment last November, said at a press briefing in New York on Tuesday, ahead of Disney’s annual upfront pitch to advertisers.

There are too many new shows to watch

Burke said there were too many new series in ABC’s lineup last season. Some of them couldn’t find or hold audiences. Shows like the comedy "The Kids Are Alright;" the divorce comedy "Splitting Up Together;" the Lauren Cohan-starring dramedy "Whiskey Cavalier;" and "Speechless," centered on a teen with a development disability, were axed after one season.

Walt Disney Television.

One of Burke’s top priorities when she took the ABC job, after leading originals at Disney’s young-adult network, Freeform, was to "stabilize" the broadcast network’s primetime TV schedule. She is investing in promoting ABC’s returning shows like "Dancing with the Stars" and the upcoming final season of "Modern Family," and launching fewer new series each year.

ABC, like other networks, is adjusting to the realities of broadcasting in the era of "peak TV" and increased competition from streaming services like Netflix.

Fewer people are tuning in to broadcast’s primetime programming, and broadcast TV overall. Overall viewership during the first few weeks of the current 2018-2019 fall broadcast season dipped 2% from the year before among the big four broadcasters — ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC — to an average of 31 million viewers, The Hollywood Reporter wrote in late 2018.

In recent years, broadcast networks including ABC started picking up fewer new series.

But there are still are more scripted shows on TV than ever before. There were 495 scripted series released in the US in 2018, across broadcast, cable, and streaming TV, FX Research found in its annual report on the state of scripted TV. Broadcast networks put out fewer scripted shows — 146 versus 153 a year earlier — while online services such as Netflix and Hulu boosted their output by 36% with 160 new shows.

FX, which moved under the Disney umbrella after it acquired 21st Century Fox’s assets, hopes to release more series in part with the added distribution it’ll receive from Hulu, which Disney previously said would be the streaming home for many FX shows. FX boss John Landgraf said Tuesday that FX currently has about 15 scripted series on the air but is interested in releasing more, if it can maintain the quality of the programming the network has now.

"I don’t think 15 shows is enough, to be honest with you, for a brand to be continually in the conversion of what’s best in TV," Landgraf said.

FX already has a deal for a new New York Times series, "The Weekly," which will air first on FX and on Hulu one day later. We could see more of these kinds of deals, now that both FX and Hulu are under Disney’s control.

The contrast between ABC and FX’s strategies shows the divergent approaches in TV that are most apparent within Disney right now. The media conglomerate controls a host of TV companies including the broadcast network ABC, cable channels such as ESPN and FX, and streaming services like Hulu, ESPN Plus, and the upcoming Disney Plus.

ABC is hoping less means more viewers

ABC, part of the declining broadcast TV sector, is hoping that fewer new shows will mean more viewers.

"Networks just don’t have the marketing budgets to launch all those shows properly," Burke said at the press briefing. "You end up with shows that suffer for not having those strong campaigns. And, in this cluttered marketplace, it’s not fair to the shows; it’s not fair to viewers."

This fall, ABC is betting on two dramas with strong female leads, the thriller "Emergence" and "Stumptown" starring Marvel alum Cobie Smulders, as well as a spinoff of the comedy series "Black-ish," called "Mixed-ish."

Other broadcast networks could follow ABC’s lead if the strategy proves successful.

But while the volume of broadcast series pickups has declined recently, the number of overall series orders this TV season is roughly in line with last season, Variety reported. That’s thanks in part to 10 new series orders from Fox, under the newly spun off Fox Corporation; Fox picked up double the number of new series it ordered last season. CBS and NBC have each reportedly ordered eight new series, as well, according to Variety.

Moving forward, Burke said that ABC plans to "stay the course" and invest only in the handful of shows that it thinks can really break through.

"It requires restraint because you get excited about all the new shows and you want to find places for all of them," Burke said. "But ultimately it’s not worth it unless you can really serve them by delivering audience."

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