Summer comes early for NBC

By James Hibberd

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - NBC is getting a running start on its summer original programming.

The network will launch the new seasons of "American Gladiators" and "Last Comic Standing" and the series premiere of the horror anthology series "Fear Itself" during the May sweep, a key period when local stations use ratings data to determine advertising rates. Four shows will follow in June.

The goal is to wrap up most of NBC's summer original series in time to focus the network on complete coverage of the Beijing Olympics in August.

The reality-and-Olympics combo will be promoted as part of NBC's "All-American Summer." Several of the titles will get supersized treatment. For the first time, USA Network import "Nashville Star" and "Last Comic Standing" will run as 90-minute episodes every week. Summer flagship "America's Got Talent" will be expanded to more than 30 hours total.

The expansion follows a reality trend where 90s are the new 60s. Networks increasingly are bulking up unscripted shows beyond the traditional one-hour weekly time period. After Fox's megahit "American Idol" spread to three nights a week, expansion strategies were adopted by ABC's "Dancing With the Stars," NBC's "Deal or No Deal" and "The Biggest Loser."

NBC also will scatter original episodes of "Deal" throughout summer for the first time, using the popular game show to build a lead-in audience for premiere episodes.

Between launching summer shows in May and pushing in-season stable "Deal" into summer, the lineup could be seen as making good on NBC's vow to adopt a more year-around scheduling strategy.

Here are the premiere dates:

= "American Gladiators" will resume in the same 8 p.m. Monday time period it dominated earlier this season. There's a two-hour premiere May 12, then 90-minute episodes each week thereafter.

= "Last Comic Standing" will premiere at 9:30 p.m. Thursday, May 22, then move to 8 p.m.

= "Fear Itself" will air at 10 p.m. Thursdays starting May 29.

= NBC's import of singing competition "Nashville Star" from USA Network will begin Monday, June 9. NBC also announced that the show's winner will get to perform at the Olympics.

= New series "Celebrity Circus" will launch with a two-hour premiere at 9 p.m. Wednesday, June 11, then resume as a one-hour show the following week at the same time. The show will have celebrities training for a Cirque du Soleil-style performance troupe. Each week the as-yet-unannounced celebrity participants will compete head-to-head to successfully complete various critics acts.

= Last summer's highest-rated original series, "America's Got Talent," launches with a pair of two-hour episodes at 9 p.m. June 24 and July 1. For the show's third season, NBC has added a talent search portion to the show, with episodes set in four cities where judges will seek out contestants. The series resumes with hourlong episodes at 9 p.m. July 8. The show will go on hiatus during the Olympics, then return Tuesday, August 26, for the performance episodes, with the results show starting at 8 p.m. August 27.

= "The Baby Borrowers," which NBC originally scheduled for midseason, will premiere at 8 p.m. June 25. Based on a British format, the show puts five teenage couples on a "fast track to adulthood" as they set up a home, get a job and become parents over the course of three weeks.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter