Looks like ABC has made some immediate changes to their Monday and Wednesday prime-time line up with more Monday Night Football simulcasts alongside ESPN & everything else including its previously announced Monday night game show slate (Celebrity Wheel of Fortune – Pat Sajak’s last season as host & Press Your Luck) will be postponed to early 2025.
So does that docuseries Scamanda (based on last year’s podcast), even though it was originally set to premiere next week (Wednesdays 10pm). Instead, viewers will see another ABC News program called What Would You Do? – which is currently a social experiment program where each scenario is done behind a hidden camera with paid actors/actresses.
And last but not least, still no premiere date for new multi-cam sitcom Shifting Gears led by Tim Allen as well as the revival of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Rest assured though that these shows is still expected to turn up at mid-season, so stay tuned over the next 1-2 months before we say goodbye to 2024.
It’s been a bit of a surprise really when ABC had some trouble fitting in their weekly prime-time schedule as of late, particularly a few weeks into the fall cycle right now. Maybe they would want to play it safe by bringing in a another full season of Monday Night Football like they did last year due to the Hollywood strikes when there wasn’t enough scripted programming to air at the time considering its their domain as it once was a long time ago (1970-2005) while management is still trying to figure out which specific content that could be their best bet going into the 2025-26 season.
I guess Grey’s Anatomy or even one of the other Ryan Murphy shows can move there for sure, but then some weeks though is still attached to MNF as ESPN originally agreed with their latest contract extension a few years ago that will go on until at least 2033. So probably Grey’s would be the best fit as if The Good Doctor or other flagship ABC scripted show needs some room to fill late on a Monday night when a brand new 9-1-1 spin-off (not the Lone Star one) will most likely complete a full Thursday line-up alongside 9-1-1 and Doctor Odyssey if ordered into series.
Also on that Scamanda docuseries, again, same bit of surprises after they had their first trailer lately only days before the originally scheduled premiere date. But I guess ABC News have been pretty busy at the same time as well, especially with the US Presidential Election coming up in a few weeks. This is about Amanda Riley faking cancer before she was later caught by police & is currently serving two years out of five-year prison sentence in Jail.
A lot of ABC News produced content on the main channel usually come out at the mid-season mark anyway, so don’t think Scamanda will suddenly won’t make it into air after all when these true stories deserved to be told to the wider audience.