As the 2025-26 TV season winds down, May’s upfronts week means industry eyes are already on next year, with Hollywood players showing off their upcoming slate to woo advertisers.
NBC conquered the broadcast season, taking the crown from CBS for the first time since the 2007-08 season thanks to Legendary February, which saw the company broadcast and stream the Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics and the NBA all-star game all in one month.
There are few better illustrations of just how powerful sports programming can be for a network or streamer.
With the jam-packed month marking a nearly once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, NBC didn’t focus on the win too heavily during its Monday upfront, instead touting its continued wins — including remaining the No. 1 Sunday primetime network thanks to football and the additions of basketball and baseball — as well as milestones it can sustain with its current slate, like NBC delivering the highest share of live co-viewing in primetime so far this year.
“We’re realistic about next year — we don’t have the Olympics, we don’t have the Super Bowl,” NBC program planning strategy president Jeff Bader told press ahead of Monday’s upfront, turning the attention to the “entertainment side” as the network welcomes four new series from its newly revived pilot season. “We just think that we will be generating more excitement … from this schedule and stability — that’s what’s important.”
With broadcast becoming a smaller part of the conversation as media conglomerates lean on their streaming services for growth, the overall ratings crown has proven less important for networks to boast over their biggest hits, which provide a hearty and loyal audience watching across platforms. It’s often those underlooked shows — that may not have the buzz of a “Euphoria” but boast solid ratings — that distinguish the networks and prove their value to advertisers.
It’s why CBS’ George Cheeks — after congratulating his former colleagues at NBC — turned his attention to why the network is “so bullish” about what’s to come at the fall slate reveal in April. While the Super Bowl will head to ABC next year, Cheeks touted the network’s ability to make hits and “dominate” over other broadcast series, noting that CBS is home to 13 of the top 20 broadcast series — more than its competitors.
ABC SVP of Content Strategy and Scheduling Ari Goldman similarly underscored the strength of the network’s entertainment programming beyond its sports lineup in an interview with TheWrap, when he boasted the Disney-owned network as the No. 1 place ahead of the other broadcast networks when it comes to viewership of that content.
That said, Goldman acknowledged that with ABC broadcasting the Super Bowl, the college football playoff championship, the Oscars (for the second to last time before it moves to YouTube) and, for the first time, the Grammys, things are looking pretty good for next season.
“I’m sure it will be a nice feather in our cap, but I don’t think it’s really the focus of our business — we are a multi-platform business,” Goldman told TheWrap. “We are about bringing audiences the content that they love wherever they choose to watch, and as that falls within the strict prime ime linear definition we’ll take it.”
Notably, ABC is among the broadcast networks holding its biggest shows until midseason, with “High Potential” — the network’s top-rated show — gearing up for a 2027 debut alongside CBS’ “Matlock” and Fox’s buzzy “Baywatch” reboot. NBC will also space out its newly picked up pilots by debuting two each across its fall and spring months.
While the midseason debut for CBS’ “Matlock” can be explained by a creative rejiggering needed after wrapping up its central mystery, the move for ABC’S “High Potential” is to give sophomore series “RJ Decker” the post-“Dancing With the Stars” launchpad. And for Fox’s “Baywatch,” the midseason launch aims to emulate the ratings success seen with this year’s debuts for “Best Medicine” and “Memory of a Killer.”
“We’ll use midseason and all the levers that we have at Fox with sports and our marketing strategy,” Fox Television Network and Fox Entertainment Michael Thorn told press. “We hope to repeat what we did last season with our new shows.”
While “Baywatch” is Fox’s buzziest series for the 2026-27 season, its fall lineup includes hits like “Doc,” “Best Medicine” and its Sunday night comedy block of “The Simpsons,” “Animal Control,” “Universal Basic Guys” and “Grimsburg.” And the midseason delay for juggernauts like “Matlock” and “High Potential” doesn’t seem like it will slow down CBS or ABC this fall, with similar-sized — if not bigger — juggernauts “Tracker” and “Dancing With the Stars.”
Of course, broadcast was only a small part of this week’s upfront presentations, with Disney, NBCUniversal and Fox touting its sports, film, cable and news branches, while Netflix, Amazon and YouTube held their own upfronts.
Amazon similarly touted its sports branch and Thursday Night Football records, while Netflix doubled down on live events and its shows and YouTube kept boasting its creator partnerships.
“Swapped” and “Man on Fire” dominate Netflix
“Swapped,” an original animated film starring Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan, soared in its second week on Netflix, rising 150% from its opening weekend viewership of 15.5 million views to reach 38.7 million views in its second week. Not only did the impressive numbers make “Swapped” the most-watched movie of the week, the viewership also marks the biggest audience in a single week for any Netflix animated movie to date.
On the TV side, the Yahya Abdul-Mateen II-fronted “Man on Fire” maintained its crown as the most-watched Netflix series for the second week in a row. The thriller series scored 12.6 million views during the week of May 4, rising slightly over last week’s viewership of 11 million.
E!’s Met Gala coverage soars
E!’s coverage of the 2026 Met Gala brought in year-over-year wins for the network. “Live from the Red Carpet” averaged 655,000 total viewers — up 20% from last year — and 215,000 viewers in the 18-49 demo — up 4% from last year — across linear and TVE platforms, ranking as the No. 1 cable entertainment telecast on the day of the event among the 18-49 demo.
Additionally, E! social platforms and livestreams saw 5% year-over-year rise in social engagements. Overall, E! Digital saw its highest performing awards season to date with over 2 billion digital and social engagements across platforms.
NewsNation’s Nancy Guthrie Special draws CW crowd
Last week’s “NewsNation Presents: The Nancy Guthrie Mystery” brought in a notable audience on the CW, marking the strongest performance for a NewsNation special on the network in the past three years. The special delivered 495,000 total viewers and 83,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo, according to Nielsen data, and the special was up 15% in total viewers compared to the Wednesday year to date average and up 20% from the previous week.
ICYMI (upfronts edition):
- Seth Meyers kicked off upfronts week with a fiery monologue torching Trump and David Ellison’s CBS at NBCUniversal’s upfront
- Warner Bros. Discovery ad presidents downplayed the Paramount merger impact
- Jimmy Kimmel joked about Disney pulling him off the air and subsequent backlash to close out Disney upfront
- Netflix flexed its $325 billion economic impact
