Chicago Fire, PD, Med: Evaluating the One Chicago fall schedule

Now that Chicago Fire, Chicago PD and Chicago Med have a premiere date, how do they fit into NBC’s fall schedule? We evaluate One Chicago’s fall plans.

With NBC having announced when One Chicago returns this fall, it’s time for us to take our annual look at how our three favorite shows fit into the network’s fall schedule—and how the schedule might affect the shows.

By now, chances are you’ve heard that NBC decided to put all three One Chicago series on the same night. That sounds more efficient for them, but what does it actually mean for each of the series and the fans?

The first effect of the new schedule is that none of our shows will actually have a lead-in any more. Chicago Med begins the night at 8 p.m. so it will have to attract an audience on its own, and with Chicago Fire and Chicago PD following, they’ll have to rely on each other to pull in viewers.

That’s great for existing One Chicago fans, but remember that NBC isn’t concerned as much about us; the network knows it already has those hardcore viewers.

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It’s looking to grow that viewer base with new fans, and the stack approach is not as conducive to that. It may be perfect for hardcore fans, but there won’t be a This Is Us in front to pull new viewers into staying for Chicago Med.

And think about it for a second: if you don’t know about something, are you going to feel like tuning into an entire night of it? It’s easier to persuade viewers who’ve tuned into their favorite show to stay another hour, than to take a chance on three hours that are all in the same franchise.

It benefits NBC because One Chicago takes up less space on the schedule, but it’s not as great for the franchise itself. The more space the shows took up on the schedule, that was also wider exposure to more viewers.

It does solve the existing issue of weak lead-ins. We’ll not have to worry anymore about Chicago Fire airing after a comedy with one-third of its audience. The franchise is standing entirely on its own, and that has pluses and minuses.

The next question about NBC’s fall schedule relative to One Chicago is its new competition. What will our shows go up against in the fall?

Chicago Med has the toughest task ahead. It will go head-to-head with CBS‘s Survivor, which has regularly won Thursday nights in the fall. Its other broadcast TV competition is FOX‘s Empire, The CW‘s popular Riverdale and ABC‘s comedies The Goldbergs and American Housewife.

It will be very hard to topple Survivor, which may not be as popular as it was 36 seasons ago but still commands a sizeable audience. Its most recent finale did 7.395 million viewers, which would put that episode on par with the best of One Chicago this season.

Another concern is Empire, which doesn’t have the total viewers of Survivor but does hook a lot of the coveted 18-49 demographic that is important to NBC advertisers. At 1.6 and 1.5 respectively, those two shows were tops amongst adults 18-49 in their last outings. Med will need to compete for at least a decent portion of that demo to be competitive overall.

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For Chicago Fire, it matches up against Modern Family and the freshman comedy Single Parents (on ABC), sophomore military drama SEAL Team (CBS), Empire spin-off Star (FOX) and new drama All American (The CW).

SEAL Team may appeal to some of the same audience as Chicago Fire, and Emmy winner Modern Family is still doing well in TV ratings, but it’s likely not going to be as difficult for Firehouse 51 as the latter is the only series that’s got both ratings power and tenure.

The easiest of the three is Chicago PD, because it’s the only One Chicago show that’s staying in its established time slot, so everyone knows where to find it. Not only that, but with FOX and The CW both going to local news in the 10 p.m. hour, it only has two shows competing against it.

One is CBS’s Criminal Minds, which was a bubble show again this season, and the other is a new series in ABC’s A Million Little Things. One show had to fight to come back and the other is brand new, so Chicago PD has the early advantage going into the fall 2018-2019 TV season.

Next: 5 big questions about the new One Chicago schedule

The NBC fall schedule sounds great in theory with the creation of an all One Chicago night, and it does fix one major problem we saw this season and the season before that. But it isn’t quite so simple; that does open up a few new considerations that fans will have to keep an eye on come September.

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