Covid-19 impacted many industries all around the world. From fashion, art, education, and now the television industry. When Covid-19 was beginning to take a toll in the United States, it definitely put a halt to many television productions that are in the country. To scripted dramas, live-audience comedy shows, to even reality tv. Covid-19 caused many networks to have to figure out what is next and what to air on their networks.
During the summer, NBC seemed to have it under control with what to air on their station. One summer weekend, they decided to air a “Grease Sing-A-Long” to go along with their returned movie nights they formally had. While ABC aired “Big Hero Six” with their Wonderful World of Disney special. NBC also took the route of using animation as the producers from hit TV series “The Blacklist” used animated scenes to finish up the season finale.
Although many people have ditched cable television and moved to streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max, Covid-19 greatly impacted those services when it comes to their original series and movies. Netflix halted the majority of its production on shows and movies, but they have managed to start production on some shows that are filmed outside of the United States. Officials from Netflix stating that “It doesn’t foresee programming, production in America to return until 2021.”
According to Rich Greenfield, a media analyst and partner at LightShed, “None of them (referring to tv show productions) are going to have a fresh season in the fall. I’m hopeful sometime between now and the end of the calendar year they will be able to ramp up production.”
With a good portion of television shows being filmed in America, a lot of our favorite shows will take some time to return back on our TV’s. According to an article written by Sara Fischer, a lot of stations may focus on what to do for Fall TV time was licensed shows, removing hits, adding safe bets, and delaying good shows.
When Fischer mentioned that a lot of stations released their fall schedules to air. On their fall schedules, it included licensed programming from international networks. She also stated that some networks will be removing hit tv shows from their schedule until further notice. “Survivor”, for example, won’t appear on CBS this fall for the first time in nearly 20 years.
Fox was the first network to release its fall programming slate. The network focused solely on shows that could keep ratings coming in. Some of those shows being animated series “Bob’s Burgers” and the reality TV show “Master Chef Junior“. Fox also will be airing season 4 of the hit reality TV show “The Masked Singer” on September 23rd, which last season ended with 8.7 million viewers. The CW is one of the only channels that straightforward told media outlets and fans that their fall TV season will be delayed until January 2021 due to the pandemic.
As Covid-19 continues to change the world drastically, some TV shows have taken the risk of starting production. According to Vulture, those shows being The Bachelorette, Love Island, The Witcher, Jeopardy, Grey’s Anatomy, S.W.AT, Big Brother, The Conners, Dancing with the Stars, and Supernatural.
It is unclear when those tv shows will air on our TV’s. Many people are hoping the shows that are currently taking the risk to continue production. Especially since the film “The Batman” reportedly stopped production a couple of weeks ago due to a positive coronavirus test.
