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Knee-deep in midseason and drowning in premieres

In years past, we'd have already seen all the new shows for this TV season, but now, the broadcast networks still have a lot of shows to push out, and a lot more outlets to compete with. ABC is debuting 3 new series this week alone.

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KCRW placeholderBy Michael Schneider • Mar 27, 2018 • 4m Listen

We're used to Netflix dropping a bunch of new shows at once, but now it feels like the big broadcast networks are doing the same. But whereas Netflix can drop an entire season at once, the slow rollout that comes with a broadcast schedule can be brutal for shows that take time to find an audience. Part of the logjam this year comes from the Olympics--no one wanted to debut a show against the Games. The other factor is the Emmy cutoff date, which comes at the end of May, so some shows may be trying to make their debut later in order to be closer to that cutoff date. But all the new shows doesn't necessarily mean innovation: this week on ABC alone, you can see the rebooted version of 'Roseanne,' plus shows starring Jenna Fischer and Zach Braff--sitcom stars from shows ('The Office' and 'Scrubs,' respectively) that had their heyday more than a decade ago.

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    Michael Schneider

    Senior editor at Variety

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    Josef Adalian

    Vulture

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