NBC Sends Off This Is Us ‘With a Bang,’ Says New Broadcast Hits Still Possible

This Is Us will end its run Tuesday night with a series finale that is likely to leave viewers an emotional wreck, as has been the case throughout much of the NBC drama’s six-season run. But tonight, the loudest crying might be coming from NBCUniversal execs, as they bid farewell to what could be one of broadcast’s last watercooler series. “The cultural impact of this show can really not be overstated,” said Frances Berwick, chairman, entertainment networks, NBCUniversal television and streaming. “You can’t watch a single promo for that show and not feel connected to it. Its resonance is profound, and it’s something that everyone here feels incredibly proud of.” At NBCUniversal, “we’re in this amazing bittersweet moment of a great final season,” said Berwick, because this “extraordinary series” is going out on top, remaining No. 1 in the adults 18-49 demo that advertisers covet most. “It has been the No. 1 broadcast drama [in the demo] for every single season it’s been on. I think that’s a first for any show,” said Berwick. “We’re going to miss it very much, but we’re going to send it off with a bang.” NBC Wins TV Season in 18-49 Demo; CBS Remains No. 1 in Total Viewers Indeed, while other scripted broadcast shows draw more total viewers (including NCIS and the FBI shows), This Is Us has been atop the 18-49 entertainment rankings for almost its entire run, including its sixth and final season. And no broadcast scripted show has dominated watercooler and social conversations like This Is Us during that time. That’s why fans were so upset a year ago when Berwick opted to delay This Is Us until midseason, leaving it off the fall schedule for the first time ever, in an effort to allow the final season to air almost entirely uninterrupted. But once those final episodes began airing, it was clear that “it was totally the right decision,” said Berwick. “I think that giving the audience that consistency week after week—with only the break for the [Winter] Olympics—was really the right way to go.” From abandoned film script to breakout hit Fans have been drawn to This Is Us—which went from being an abandoned film script to a breakout hit—ever since the show’s first trailer was released during upfront week in 2016 and quickly went viral, racking up 50 million Facebook viewers. NBC stoked that momentum that summer and early fall with a marketing campaign that got 10 million people to watch the series premiere that September without spoiling the episode’s big twist: that young couple Mandy Moore and Milo Ventimiglia, who spend much of the pilot preparing to give birth, are actually the parents of the three siblings featured on the show: Chrissy Metz, Justin Hartley and Sterling K. Brown. Yet despite the show’s continued success and the fact that NBC would have gladly taken several more seasons of the drama, creator Dan Fogelman stuck to his original six-season design. “It’s hard ending something you love,” Fogelman told reporters earlier this year, “but this has very much been the plan.” He explained, “From day one, Sterling used to come into my office and be like, ‘It’s six seasons, right?’ And I was like, ‘We’re doing six seasons. That’s the road map.’” At this point, the story has “run out of real estate: [Ventimiglia’s patriarch character] Jack’s gone. The kids are getting older. We’ve told the story in the future. It’s not because we don’t have any more story to tell, it’s because we exactly planned it to go this way,” said Fogelman. “We’re on a five-year path, and to suddenly pivot and add more because we don’t want it to end, it wouldn’t be quite responsible to the show and what we have planned. It would start becoming something else.” End of a broadcast era? As is often the case when TV’s biggest shows head off into the sunset, the industry is wondering whether This Is Us’ conclusion heralds the end of an era: the buzzy, watercooler broadcast show. NBCUniversal says no. “I really don’t believe so,” said Berwick. “Witness what’s happened with Yellowstone. I think that we’re going to keep seeing great content, and it’s going to be on many different platforms—whether broadcast or cable or SVOD. There’s a tremendous amount of great content creators and great ideas out there.” But one thing Berwick is certain of: This Is Us “will stand the test of time. I think that many people are going to keep discovering it for years, and it feels very gratifying to be a part of that.” While Fogelman wasn’t interested in extending the show’s run beyond his six-season plan, he’s not opposed to revisiting the story down the road, especially now that so many shows are revived, sometimes more than a decade after their finales. “I say no to nothing,” he said. “I'm very aware that a midlife crisis is right around the corner for me and that whatever I do next I'm going to hate in comparison to this show and these actors.” Fogelman added, “If we can figure out a movie down the road, I'd love to get back together with these guys and do it. I don't know what that would be. By the end of this season, I think we'll have told the complete story, so I'm not sure.” Whatever the creator has in mind, Berwick is already all-in: Moments after Fogelman suggested a potential movie to reporters, he added: “I see on my computer, the president of NBC is literally texting me right now: ‘Yes, to the movie.’”