Good news, “Community” fans: your show may not have to air on Fridays, after all.
Bad news, “Community” fans: your show won’t be returning 11 days from now.
NBC has decided to hold the October 19 premieres of both “Community” and “Whitney.” I’m told the goal is to give both of them more proper support, but it’s unclear if that means keeping them on Fridays but delaying them long enough to do a better marketing campaign, or if one or both of the shows will be sent in to replace a sitcom that’s struggling earlier in the week (like, for instance, “Up All Night”).
NBC has had successes with its Monday and Tuesday lineups, thanks to “The Voice” and the shows that immediately follow it, but the Wednesday and Thursday lineups have been a mess. “Community” or “Whitney” could be sent there, or NBC may just not have the resources to launch a fourth sitcom bloc right now, and the two will be paired together later in the season.
Sing it with me: Troy and Abed on hiaaaaaaatus!
UPDATE: NBC has now issued a statement:
“Given the success we”ve had for the past four weeks – including winning the first week of the season in A18-49 – we”ve decided to continue to concentrate our promotional strength on our new NBC shows that are scheduled Monday through Wednesday and have therefore decided to hold COMMUNITY and WHITNEY from their previously announced premieres of October 19th. Without having to launch these comedies on Friday at this time, we can keep our promotion focused on earlier in the week — plus we will have both comedies in our back pocket if we need to make any schedule changes on those nights. When we have a better idea of viewing patterns in the next few weeks, we will announce new season premieres of WHITNEY and COMMUNITY. “