A new network television season will soon be upon us, one impacted by the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. As far as I can tell, no fall preview specials have been produced for this season. CBS, which for years has broadcast a fall preview special in prime time, doesn’t have one scheduled this month. I’ve checked national TV listings, my local listings, plus listings for a variety of other parts of the country.
Last fall, both ABC and CBS aired fall preview specials in prime time. The “ABC Fall Preview Special,” hosted by the cast of Home Economics, aired Wednesday, September 14th, 2022. The “CBS Fall Preview” special aired Friday, September 16th, 2022.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising if in fact none of the network decided to produce a fall preview special this year. The dual strikes underway have significantly impacted the 2023-2024 schedules announced by the broadcast networks back in May. Very few new scripted programs will debut this fall. Exceptions include The Irrational and Found on NBC.
CBS plans to offer streaming series SEAL Team (which originated on CBS before moving to Paramount+) and Yellowstone. It will also import NCIS: Sydney from Australia and the original Ghosts from the United Kingdom. The CW has several Canadian, German, and British shows on its schedule, including Everyone Else Burns, The Spencer Sisters, and The Swarm. There will be plenty of repeats, sports, and reality programs on all the networks.
If you have any information about fall preview specials for 2023, hit the comments and let everyone know.
I did a Google search on Network Fall Preview Specials and the only thing that came up was this TV Obscurities article. That leads me to believe there won’t be any preview specials. To be honest, I wasn’t even thinking about a new TV season starting. Alas, all I watch on TV these days is some half-hour news shows (BBC America is a favorite) a few series on PBS (I’m still loyal to Antiques Roadshow, plus I like Finding Your Roots and Call the Midwife). I watch some old shows on YouTube, sometimes I dig out my portable DVD player to watch a few shows I like well enough that I paid to own copies, and that’s about it.
Deadline Hollywood has confirmed there are no network fall preview specials this season:
https://deadline.com/2023/09/fall-tv-schedule-trike-impact-2023-1235541037/
I scan the TV listings regularly this time of year and couldn’t find any mention of previews. Even the Canadian stations aren’t running them, but their previews tend to include US shows. Entertainment Tonight often has a special covering the fall, but I stopped watching the show long ago.
FOX has had a few winter previews for the past few years. So we could see a couple around the end of December and into January. Based on the past couple years, I would expect the FOX one will be around the week of December 17th, if they have one.
I could see the networks dropping them altogether. There’s not much need for them anymore. The shows that were suppose to air were announced months ago and people can usually catch the trailers online. It seems NBC hasn’t had one since 2019 and the CW hasn’t had one for the past decade. The NBC ones were always the most interesting since they were often hosted by characters from one of their shows. Incidentally, the last Saturday Morning preview was on ABC in 1999.
So ABC had originally penciled in “A Fine Romance” for Sunday, and “ABC Mystery Movie” for Saturday before the 1988 WGA strike caused a delay. For Fox, “24” was originally pencilled in as a Monday entry for January 2008, but the 2007 WGA strike delayed the entire season by a year. But CBS had pencilled in “Elsbeth” for Thursday and “Matlock” on Sunday and NBC had originally pencilled in “Found” for Thursday, but the 2023 Hollywood strikes has delayed it.