The Breakdown: NBC Friday in 2021-22 (Home Sweet Home, The Blacklist, Dateline)

It's time for a journey through the NBC Friday schedule in 2021-22...


fall

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2020-21	American Ninja Warrior (R)		American Ninja Warrior (R)	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	62
	2020-21	50		50	69		69	68		68		62
2021-22	Home Sweet Home		Home Sweet Home	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	60 (-3%)
	2021-22	37 (-25%)		37.243731897176	72 (+5%)		72 (+5%)	72 (+5%)		72 (+5%)		60.2908897538016
VsAvg	-31%		-0.314918170990308	+8%		0.0789615781546638	+1%		0.013665271155099	-6%
Rank	19/21		19/21	11/21		11/21	8/21		8/21	13/21

With only one hour up for grabs, NBC tried Ava DuVernay reality series Home Sweet Home in October, but it had a rough four-week run of all 0.2's and got shipped off to Peacock. The Wall ended up filling in for a handful of weeks, but mostly the timeslot was just treading water in anticipation of the return of The Blacklist after the new year.

winter

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2020-21	The Blacklist		The Blacklist	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	59
	2020-21	56		56	61		61	61		61		59
2021-22	The Blacklist		The Blacklist	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	73 (+24%)
	2021-22	58 (+3%)		57.8257942614048	81 (+33%)		81 (+33%)	82 (+35%)		82 (+35%)		73.4347657192855
VsAvg	-7%		-0.0671203888073877	+23%		0.228713393538842	+16%		0.156073604079962	+11%
Rank	13/21		13/21	2/21		2/21	4/21		4/21	5/21

The winter had more filler in the 8/7c hour leading into the Olympics, and then The Blacklist finally returned to the night in late February after airing nine Thursday episodes in the fall/early winter. Dateline actually had some of its most impressive episodes in January after the random stuff.

spring

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2020-21	The Blacklist		The Blacklist	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	60
	2020-21	55		55	62		62	62		62		60
2021-22	The Blacklist		The Blacklist	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	64 (+8%)
	2021-22	48 (-12%)		48.2208318247647	73 (+17%)		73 (+17%)	73 (+17%)		73 (+17%)		64.4251221940623
VsAvg	-8%		-0.0780389175486017	+17%		0.169744554158728	+11%		0.106927739364307	+7%
Rank	13/21		13/21	2/21		2/21	5/21		5/21	7/21

The Blacklist dropped off in the spring, posting 0.2's for the majority of its post-DST eps. Dateline also took a spring dip, but still handily stayed ahead of last year's pace.

Rating the Ratings

Name	Lo	Avg	Hi	y2y	Plus	Label	Plusy2y	Results
Dateline Fri*	0.3	0.37	0.5	-8%	73	solid(Fri)	+16%
The Blacklist*	0.2	0.29	0.4	-17%	57	flop	+5%	detail
Home Sweet Home	0.2	0.19	0.2		37	flop

Dateline Fri: Really solid ratings all season, and the one segment that wasn't as stellar (fall) was probably held back by the Home Sweet Home lead-in. After several years in the 60s, this took Dateline Friday back to its high-end historical ratings from circa 2016-18. Grade: A-.

The Blacklist: Already updated.

Home Sweet Home: Shipped to Peacock after 4 episodes. Not a lot of stuff gets pulled from the schedule prematurely these days, so I think I have to go Grade: F.

The names in this last table link to the shows' War of 18-49 pages. Links with an asterisk(*) have been updated with the new info. Updates to younger shows will come later in the summer.

Previous Breakdowns for NBC Friday: 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21

Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for NBC Friday.