NBC will launch a fall 2025 schedule dominated by three nights of live sports — most notably, the arrival of the NBA on Tuesday nights in October. “The NBA is a huge priority for us,” Jeff Bader, NBCUniversal Entertainment’s president, program planning strategy, told reporters this weekend. “That is our biggest new show in the fall.”
The arrival of the NBA (part of a new 11-year agreement to air NBA and WNBA regular-season and playoff basketball games) also required a bit of schedule rejiggering to fit NBC’s remaining returning shows: After a bloodbath last week (R.I.P. “Suits LA,” “Found,” “The Irrational,” “Lopez vs. Lopez” and “Night Court”), NBC has seven dramas and two comedies left standing.
Those returning shows will be joined by just a sprinkling of new entrants: Most notably, the new unscripted series “On Brand With Jimmy Fallon,” which will air twice a week in September (on Tuesdays and Fridays) until the NBA arrives.
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NBC’s two surviving comedies, “St. Denis Medical” and “Happy’s Place,” will return in November and be utilized to launch new laffers on two different nights. The plan right now is to cut the Monday edition of “The Voice” down to one hour (at 9 p.m., which means the show will have fewer hours this fall), opening up 8 p.m. for “St. Denis Medical” and a new TBD laffer to form a new Monday comedy block. At the same time, as Friday edition of “On Brand” ends, Reba McEntire’s “Happy’s Place” will return to that night at 8 p.m., also paired with a TBD sitcom.
Those two yet unnamed shows airing behind “St. Denis Medical” and “Happy’s Place” will come out of a pool of three contenders: “The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins,” starring Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe; “Stumble,” from Jeff and Liz Astrof (“Trial & Error”), or an untitled project about a community center from Sierra Teller Ornelas (“Superstore”).
“Reggie Dinkins” already has a series order, while “Stumble” and the community center project will deliver pilots soon, giving NBC a chance to decide if either or both make the cut.
“We have to see the two pilots before we decide where anything is going on in those time slots,” said Steve Kern, NBCUniversal Entertainment’s senior VP, program planning & scheduling. “So it’s still really to be determined.”
As for NBC’s surviving dramas, they’re not going anywhere. “Chicago Med,” “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago P.D.” remain in their Wednesday home, while “Law & Order” and “Law & Order: SVU” continue on Thursdays. Sophomore entry “Brilliant Minds” will get a full season order on Monday nights at 10 p.m. ET (behind “The Voice”), while “The Hunting Party” will run on Thursdays at 10 p.m. after the “L&O” twins.
This means it’s unlikely you’ll see any new dramas coming to NBC in the immediate future. (And as for any more renewals, still on the bubble is “Grosse Pointe Garden Society,” which is still awaiting word on its fate.)
“This schedule of dramas you’re seeing, that’s going to be our schedule for the season,” Bader said. “We’ll always be looking for other opportunities. 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. The reason that you’re seeing these sophomore shows, we’re really going to lean into them. ‘Brilliant Minds’ only had 13 episodes in its first season. ‘Hunting Party’ only had 10 episodes. We need to get these to full seasons and really lean into them and really get them established.”
For next season, that means right now “Brilliant Minds” has been given a 20-episode order, while “The Hunting Party” has a 13-episode order.
Later in the season, NBC has the eight-episode nature docuseries “Surviving Earth,” about past mass extinctions like the dinosaurs. And in winter 2026 NBC has both the Super Bowl and the Winter Olympics.
“We do need to decide what shows we want to use to launch after those events or using those events,” Bader said.
Until the comedies return in November, NBC will kick off the season in September with just seven hours of scripted programming — which may be an unprecedented low. But Bader is nonplussed, noting that it’s not dramatically different from last fall.
“I actually think we did a good job of carving out scripted time, given that we do not have Tuesdays,” he said, later adding, “I would not give up any of the things that we have… the NBA is live sports programming. That’s what we need for linear. It’s a very, very different world. Would I love to have more real estate and be able to put on more shows and more new shows? Absolutely… We want to put on the strongest schedule that we can put on. And I actually think we have a very nice mix here of scripted, alternative and sports.”
NBC FALL 2025-26 SCHEDULE (SEPT./OCT./NOV.)
MONDAY (SEPT./OCT.)
8 p.m. — “The Voice”
10 p.m. — “Brilliant Minds”
MONDAY (NOV.)
8 p.m. — “St. Denis Medical”
8:30 p.m. — TBD Comedy
9 p.m. — “The Voice”
10 p.m. — “Brilliant Minds”
TUESDAY (SEPT.)
8 p.m. – “The Voice”
10 p.m. – “On Brand With Jimmy Fallon” (NEW)
TUESDAY (OCT./NOV.)
8 p.m. – NBA on NBC
WEDNESDAY
8 p.m. — “Chicago Med”
9 p.m. — “Chicago Fire”
10 p.m. — “Chicago P.D.”
THURSDAY
8 p.m. — “Law & Order”
9 p.m. — “Law & Order: SVU”
10 p.m. — “The Hunting Party”
FRIDAY (SEPT./OCT.)
8 p.m. — “On Brand With Jimmy Fallon” (NEW)
9 p.m. — “Dateline NBC”
FRIDAY (NOV.)
8 p.m. — “Happy’s Place”
8:30 p.m. — TBD Comedy
9 p.m. — “Dateline NBC”
SATURDAY
7 p.m. ET— Big Ten Pregame / Notre Dame Pregame (also live on Peacock)
7:30 p.m. ET— Big Ten Saturday Night / Notre Dame Football (also live on Peacock)
SUNDAY
7 p.m. ET— Football Night in America (also live on Peacock)
8:20 p.m. ET— NBC Sunday Night Football (also live on Peacock)
