How the NFL could mess up ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ ‘The Blacklist,’ and other shows

For those of you who already loathe how Thursday Night Football completely messes up the CBS schedule, be prepared for so much more frustration provided that the NFL has their way (and they typically do).

As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, the NFL is currently considering expanding their Thursday lineup to ten weeks rather than eight, and giving five each to CBS and NBC. What makes this even worse for networks is that they could alternate between one network and the other every week. That would mean that people who like “The Big Bang Theory,” “The Blacklist,” and some other other Thursday staples, they could have to deal with repeats almost every week … which is incredibly confusing.

Unless this is just the NFL trying to leak some sort of information out there to get some more money from a single network (which is doubtful), this just shows just how much networks value having highly-rated games on their networks, even if the majority of them turn out to be blowouts. They can do almost everything that they want, and networks will follow them hoping to get the ratings.

Our big concern comes for the original programs. Does having commercials during these games really compensate for having a consistent lineup of new episodes? Especially for new shows, we think it is super-valuable that they get to air every week so that networks can start to build momentum with them, that way nobody just bails after getting aboard a show because it isn’t on the air seven days later.

Photo: NBC