Season 3 of Friday Night Lights to air on DirecTV's The 101 first, NBC second

by Darren Murph posted Apr 2nd 2008 at 7:31PM

It's not atypical to see shows ink exclusive deals with carriers every now and then, but this one's pretty bizarre. Apparently the third season of Friday Night Lights has been green-lit for production, but in an effort to "spread production costs while rekindling a series," all 13 new episodes will air first on DirecTV. In other words, by the time all non-DTV subscribers see S3 in early 2009, customers of the aforesaid sat provider will have already experienced the baker's dozen. Filming is slated to resume sometime this summer, and DTV users will have access to the new season on October 1st on The 101; sometime after the Super Bowl (in 2009), it'll broadcast on NBC. Weird, huh?

[Via Chicago Tribune, image courtesy of PopTheology]

Filed under: NBC, Satellite, Sports

Tags: deal, directv, exclusive, football, friday night lights, FridayNightLights, nbc, partnership, The 101, The101

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

DeadPixel @ Apr 2nd 2008 7:39PM

wait.. so i have to wait a freakn year to see the dumbest show on tv, which i love?!?!

Neutral

FreeRange @ Apr 2nd 2008 7:51PM

Or get DirecTV. Which one sounds more reasonable?

Neutral

matt @ Apr 3rd 2008 2:30AM

or do what everyone else does or will do that likes the show. download it before hand.

what a dumb idea though. nbc will have lower ratings for real fans of the show cause they'll probably watch it by other means (torrents or otherwise) when it comes out on direct TV.... I think.

whahaa's post has a good point too. he might be right considering I don't think there's that many people that are hardcore fans of this show. Either way its an experiment that NBC clearly is doing on a show they feel is worth doing it with (due to low ratings to begin with). I don't know how clear the outcome will be cause of that (it not being that popular or good a show) cause you run the risk of some hardcore fans simply downloading the episodes and then if the audience doesn't expand in January you'll have somewhat lower ratings than the season before. Also unlike say Hero's the show doesn't exactly have the fan base that would keep up on the internet buzz, or has dedicated forums discussing episodes.

Neutral

DeadPixel @ Apr 3rd 2008 8:45AM

Ill just wait, id rather not have my tv service cut out wile the clouds go over!

Neutral

daaper @ Apr 3rd 2008 1:08PM

haha, are you serious? You really buy into that cable-provider propaganda? Wow, I didn't realize there were still people that fell for it...

Neutral

DeadPixel @ Apr 3rd 2008 1:32PM

its not propaganda where i am, 3 of my neighbors have dtv and dish. ive seen it go out when its cloudy and raining. plus ive read about some of the customer service things like over and double billing.

Neutral

daaper @ Apr 4th 2008 9:59AM

weird, I've had both cable and sat. The cable went out many more times than the sat ever has. In fact, I've never had my sat go out.

Neutral

Zach @ Apr 2nd 2008 8:11PM

Oh just like NBC did with Passions? look how that went.

Highly Ranked

Bones @ Apr 2nd 2008 8:31PM

imagine the torrent volume from this stunt... :) Seems stupid to me on all sorts of fronts.. they would be better off running it as a web PPV only for a while, or X-Box PPv etc..

Neutral

dukefan @ Apr 2nd 2008 8:31PM

i got directv! and im a fan of the show! 13 Episodes?! FUCK!

Highly Ranked

whahaa @ Apr 2nd 2008 9:24PM

it's simple math.

nbc has a show they're not very confident in. normally they would run an advertising campaign to build interest leading up to the season premiere, and then they make their profits through advertising.

now with this deal, directv pays nbc a butt-load of cash for the rights to air it first. directv pays for their own marketing of the event. directv subscribers tune in and start generating buzz. torrent downloads go through the roof and generate more buzz. then when they air the show after the superbowl, when america craves football tv, even if it's teen melodrama football tv, they can charge even more for advertising than they could have otherwise.

so with the original plan they make ad money.
with the new plan they make more ad money + directv money.

looks like someone over there finally figured out that torrent piracy doesn't really hurt their bottom line in the slightest. :)

Neutral

DustoMan @ Apr 2nd 2008 10:42PM

This show was on the bubble on coming back next season. Why not do with this a better show, like Bionic Woman or Journeyman?

Neutral

Jeff N. @ Apr 2nd 2008 11:32PM

I think it was a better solution than canceling the show. With DirecTV and NBC sharing the costs both can show it and do well with it. Maybe Journeyman and should of made a deal with Dish.

Neutral

EJNelly @ Apr 2nd 2008 11:58PM

This is quite possibly the worst show on television, just cancel it already. I can't even figure out why the critics seem to love it. I suspect they're watching another show, since it's the complete opposite of what they say it is.

Neutral

DeadPixel @ Apr 3rd 2008 9:00AM

the only reason i watch it is cause its good for a laugh!

Neutral

Adam @ Apr 3rd 2008 10:39AM

YAH!!!!! I love this SHOW!!!! so good to see that NBC wants some quality tv... just too bad I have to figure out a way to get a dish signal in my NYC apartment...

Neutral

Marcos @ Apr 3rd 2008 12:15PM

I love this show and I've been thinking about switching from Comcast (Memphis) to DirecTV, so this might push me to make the jump!

Neutral

Pzizzle @ Apr 4th 2008 4:07AM

I love this show and so does my wife (which she did not expect to when I made her watch a "football show"), so whatever it takes to keep it on the air is fine by me. Plus, we already have DirecTV, so there won't be any waiting or downloading of the show. To us, this is great news.

And, the lack of love for the show in the comments her surprises me greatly.

EA Sports MMA gameplay footage revealed during Strikeforce match Nintendo 'hasn't committed' to new Zelda for Wii in 2010 Xbox 360 port of 3D Dot Game Heroes 'possible'	HTML5 YouTube viewer: close, but not quite there Photoshop.com Mobile now available for Android devices Jailbroken iPhones in Australia getting Rickrolled by a worm
Brenthaven: The best computer backpack I've ever seen Is the Magic Mouse a dog? First look: Viewfinder supercharges Flickr search	Sunday Funnies: Barron's predicting profits? Entrepreneur's Journal: Putting together a solid sales contract Walmart, Amazon now slash DVD prices: What's next?
Reminder: Watch the first episode of Halo Legends today [update: It's gone] Homemade Fallout 3 Shishkebab, make 'em now before the apocalypse Gears of War 2 celebrates first anniversary with triple XP	High Speed, High Fashion: Izod secures deal as IndyCar title sponsor For an Imperfect World: The Official Rules of Shotgun NHTSA study indicates hybrids have higher pedestrian crash rates
BioWare's Neverwinter Nights downloadable modules no longer available PC Modern Warfare 2 can't be played until Tuesday, even if you get it early Sony Online faces lawsuit from visually impaired gamer	Patriots Taking Control in AFC East Mike Holmgren on Cleveland's Radar DeAngelo Hall Accuses Falcons Assistant Of Throwing Punches