ABC boss explains ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ – ‘Scandal’ – ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ delay
Earlier this month, some news came out that certainly left many fans of #TGIT gobsmacked. “Scandal,” “Grey’s Anatomy,” and “How to Get Away with Murder” — despite being originally planned to return on January 19, were pushed back to the 26th by ABC. This was a thorn in the side of many fans, but if this wasn’t bad enough, there was also this: It happened as a result of a “20/20” special highlighting the run-up to Inauguration Day for President-elect Donald Trump.
Given how many fans of #TGIT are likely people who didn’t vote Donald Trump’s way in the election — and how the majority of the casts for the three shows were all staunch Hillary Clinton supporters — you can easily say that this is a controversial move. They’ve all kept fairly quiet about it, but if you were in their shoes, would you be thrilled? At the end of the day, though, television is a business — the network will likely get big ratings leading up to the Inauguration, as there were still tens of millions of people who voted for him and many of them may enjoy watching this sort of special.
One thing that ABC programming head Channing Dungey wants you to know is that this is a decision that she personally agonized over. She even said the following to TVLine, saying that she and ABC News went back and forth on different ideas. There was at one point a discussion to move the show down from two hours to one, but even with that, she noted that the network “felt like it was better to move all of #TGIT to the following week, and have it come out at once.”
Can you argue that we don’t need a special on Trump in the White House, given that this has been about 1000% of cable news coverage for the past several weeks? Absolutely, but for those agonizing about this, remember that you’re not actually losing an episode of any of these shows. They’re just moving back a week, so it’s one week of fewer repeats or preemptions down the road.
In the end, it stinks, but we’ll get past it. In the interim, we’ll just have to figure out some other ways to buy a little bit of time. (Photo: ABC.)