The Breakdown: NBC Friday in 2024-25 (Happy's Place, Lopez Vs. Lopez, Dateline and more!)

It's time for a journey through the NBC Friday schedule in 2024-25...


fall

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2023-24	The Wall		The Wall	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	64
	2023-24	59		59	68		68	66		66		64
2024-25	Happy's Place	Lopez Vs. Lopez	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	71 (+10%)
	2024-25	83 (+42%)	60 (+3%)	71 (+5%)				71 (+5%)	69 (+5%)		69 (+5%)	70.6745986578046
	2024-25											83.2721101809791	60.3160149418984	71 (+5%)	71 (+5%)	69 (+5%)	69 (+5%)	70.6745986578046
	2024-25	72 (+22%)		71.7940625614387	71 (+5%)		71 (+5%)	69 (+5%)			69 (+5%)	70.6745986578046
VsAvg	+23%		0.226244862477375	+5%		0.0512039478844207	-4%		-0.035460484444467	+7%
Rank	6/26		6/26	14/26		14/26	11/26		11/26	11/26

NBC brought Friday night comedy institution Reba McEntire back to the night with newbie Happy's Place, which got a nice above-league average pop on premiere night. It looked like it might be yet another front-loaded comedy during the fall run, as it had dropped from the 0.35 to as low as 0.21 late in the fall. Its lead-out was returnee Lopez Vs. Lopez, which took significant drops from the lead-in.

winter

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2023-24	Transplant		Transplant	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	64
	2023-24	42		42	75		75	74		74		64
2024-25	Happy's Place	Lopez Vs. Lopez	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	73 (+15%)
	2024-25	83 (+96%)	66 (+57%)	72 (-3%)				72 (-3%)	72 (-3%)		72 (-3%)	73.1256661251436
	2024-25											82.7094607878644	66.1675686302915	72 (-3%)	72 (-3%)	72 (-3%)	72 (-3%)	73.1256661251436
	2024-25	74 (+76%)		74.4385147090779	72 (-3%)		72 (-3%)	72 (-3%)			72 (-3%)	73.1256661251436
VsAvg	+16%		0.158407001906124	+6%		0.0589604793903711	-2%		-0.0231989002466221	+6%
Rank	6/26		6/26	11/26		11/26	10/26		10/26	9/26

Happy's Place had a highly erratic winter, bouncing often between mid-0.3's and mid-0.2's, but the end result was the same average as the fall, which goes down as better than expected given the fall trend. The Lopez retention improved somewhat here, but not enough to save it.

spring

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2023-24	Password (R)		Password (R)	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	61
	2023-24	51		51	65		65	65		65		61
2024-25	Grosse Pointe Garden Society		Grosse Pointe Garden Society	Dateline				Dateline	Dateline	Dateline	52 (-14%)
	2024-25	39 (-24%)		39.1603977607848	59 (-10%)		59 (-10%)	59 (-10%)		59 (-10%)		52.0638238428824
VsAvg	-27%		-0.267861535701059	-7%		-0.0673793187007402	-13%		-0.132906542091531	-15%
Rank	21/26		21/26	21/26		21/26	17/26		17/26	19/26

Soon after Happy's Place finished in late March, the hour became the home of failed Sunday 10/9c drama Grosse Pointe Garden Society. The show basically maintained its dire Sunday levels here, as 8/7c after local programming was probably a better situation than 10/9c following the huge disappointment Suits LA.

Rating the Ratings (about grades)

Name	Lo	Avg	Hi	y2y	Plus	Label	Plusy2y	Results
Happy's Place	0.2	0.27	0.4		85	hit(Fri)		detail
Grosse Pointe Garden Society	0.1	0.12	0.2		39	flop		detail
Lopez Vs. Lopez	0.2	0.20	0.3	-18%	64	solid(Fri)	-2%	detail
Dateline Fri*	0.1	0.21	0.3	-18%	67	solid(Fri)	-2%

Happy's Place: Sounds crazy to say, but Happy's Place was arguably the strongest scripted show NBC has tried on Friday since SVU left two decades ago. The winter performance looked durable on average, but all the Jekyll/Hyde bounces in that period leave it with some uncertainty heading into season two. Will we see the over-90 Plus version again, or the sub-70 version, or both? Grade: A-.

Grosse Pointe Garden Society: I'm not sure this was ever going to work but the Suits LA lead-in on Sunday did it zero favors; besides flopping hard in general, Suits also turned out to be more male-skewing than I think NBC expected, giving the soapy Grosse Pointe an atrocious 0.1 lead-in in W18-49 on a few occasions. The Transplant-level showing on Friday didn't help it make any kind of case, though. Grade: F.

Lopez Vs. Lopez: Its three seasons of 65/66/64 look crazy consistent, but I can't help but feeling it could've done better in this situation. I don't think this was as good as Young Rock's 59 with a Lopez lead-in two years ago, for example. Grade: C.

Dateline Fri: Was steady with the comedy lead-ins and kinda tanked in the spring after Grosse Pointe. However, it had plenty of bad lead-ins last year as well. Grade: B-.

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 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24

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