SitcomsOnline.com News Blog

It's time for another edition of Fri-Yay! That means we will take a look back on some sitcom happenings in recent days or weeks or other fun sitcomy stuff. It's a sitcom lover's paradise! Happy Fri-Yay!

by Vincent

This week, Disney+ made its grand debut on TV screens (or whatever device you have) all over the country. While the service's claim to fame is likely primarily its library of Disney original movies, there is some reason to be excited as a sitcom fan, as well. If you're a fan of old-school, '90s and '00s era Disney or Disney Channel sitcoms, many of them are now available to be streamed on Disney+ -- and many did not previously have a streaming home. Additionally, every episode of The Simpsons is now available ad-free for the first time ever. It's a big deal for Simpsons fans, although it's somewhat disappointing that the service is not broadcasting the episodes in their original aspect ratio. Still, having every episode of the animated series at your fingertips easily is a great feat. As good as Simpsons World was, the ads and the buggy aspects of the FXNow platform held it down - Disney+, if they fix the original aspect ratio, is a better fit for it.

Still, it's easy to wonder what Disney+ means for the future of TV going forward. 10 million subscribers signed up on the first day, beating the service's own end-of-year estimate of 8 million in the first 24 hours after launch. Perhaps not coincidentally, the live ratings for the ABC sitcom line-up that night tanked to series lows. We know streaming is the future, but having a major new player in the streaming wars certainly nails it into the coffin. It remains to be seen how the streaming landscape will exactly take place (will HBO Max and Peacock see the same type of success? Will Netflix cool off with all of the competition?) but one thing is for sure: the future is streaming.

NBC has renewed its critically acclaimed and Golden Globe Award-winning comedy Brooklyn Nine-Nine for an eighth season in 2020-21. The seventh season begins Thursday, Feb. 6, 2020 at 8 p.m. ET/PT with a one-hour premiere before airing in its regularly scheduled 8:30 p.m. timeslot beginning Feb. 13. Last season Brooklyn Nine-Nine averaged a 1.2 rating and 3.2 million viewers overall in "live plus same day" Nielsens for a total-viewer increase of +15% versus the prior season on Fox. After 35 days of linear and digital delayed viewing, the show last season grew to a 3.1 rating in 18-49 and 6.4 million viewers overall, with 59% of that 18-49 rating coming from nonlinear sources - the #1 biggest digital percentage for an NBC series last season. Brooklyn Nine-Nine was also last season's #1 most-social primetime comedy series across television, earning 9 million total interactions (Source: Nielsen Social SCR , 09/24/18-05/23/19, Primetime Daypart, Linear Window, Scripted Series Only. Twitter [Organic + Owned], Facebook [owned only], Instagram [owned only].)

Brooklyn Nine-Nine stars Andy Samberg, Andre Braugher, Terry Crews, Melissa Fumero, Stephanie Beatriz, Joe Lo Truglio, Dirk Blocker and Joel McKinnon Miller.