NBC is axing scripted content, but what does that say about Peacock?

NBC was going to have to revamp its schedule in order to have primetime action. With college football and NFL Sunday Night Football in the mix on the weekends, NBC needed weeknights available. Nobody is pushing football off its perch, and TNT went as far as to move its NBC game of the week to Tuesdays once the NFL decided it wanted Thursday nights for itself as well. Live sports is the best and quickest path to live viewership left in the modern television landscape. NBC deciding to cut back on scripted offerings for the NBA, while a bummer for creatives working in a fraught industry, makes business sense.

However, it also sparked a question for us. NBC has its own proprietary streaming service in Peacock. It has been the home to several original scripted shows in the past, and is at present. The second season of "Poker Face," for example, has kicked it into high gear. so, why were these shows canceled and not moved to Peacock?

One draws subscribers to a streaming service in various ways. Peacock has sports, and a library of old shows and movies, though many of those shows are found elsewhere. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a place you can watch "Columbo." Original movies haven't really been part of the equation for Peacock, but original shows have. Finding ones that have clicked has been spotty for Peacock, though. We imagine old episodes of "The Office" are as popular as anything on there.

Maybe dramas like "Found" and "The Irrational" wouldn't be viable if NBC wanted to cut the budget for them to be on Peacock, but, let's be honest "Night Court" and "Lopez vs. Lopez" weren't lush-looking shows. The third season of "Night Court" ended on a cliffhanger. You could get some subscribers, or engage existing subscribers in watching and seeing more ads, by letting that show end things on Peacock. Also, they really gave up on the trying to coast on the name "Suits" awfully quickly.

Is Comcast, corporate overlords of NBC and thus Peacock, feeling bearish on the streaming service? Are they looking to cut costs there? Well, it does seem like the dream of the 2010s is alive at Peacock with this announcement:

All cheap, brain-dead "unscripted" TV all the time, baby!

Or, instead of stroking our chins about what this all means vis-a-vis Peacock, maybe Occam's Razor is applicable. Maybe NBC canceled these shows because the network executives didn't think they were very good and they weren't engaging enough of an audience. Television shows have been canceled since the days of three channels and the next-best option for at-home entertainment being a book or the radio. We gave up on "Night Court" pretty early. We never bothered with "Lopez vs. Lopez" because we didn't hate ourselves enough to engage with it after seeing one commercial. The NBA is popular and is quality entertainment. These shows, perhaps, were not seen by NBC's decision makers as either of these things.

Maybe NBA on NBC just facilitated a decision that was likely coming anyway. However, not seeing Peacock come into the equation at all does make it seem like it won't be operating as a safe harbor for any NBC shows. Why continue the adventures of Dan Fielding on "Night Court" when you can pay a bunch of good-looking idiots next to nothing for three "Love Island" shows?

(h/t The Hollywood Reporter)