It's time for a journey through the NBC Friday schedule in 2025-26...
fall
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | Happy's Place | Lopez Vs. Lopez | Dateline | 71 | |||
| 83 | 60 | 71 | |||||
| 72 | 71 | 69 | |||||
| 2025-26 | Happy's Place | Stumble | Dateline | 61 (-14%) | |||
| 75 (-10%) | 52 (-14%) | 60 (-16%) | |||||
| 63 (-12%) | 60 (-16%) | 59 (-14%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +8% | -11% | -17% | -7% | |||
| Rank | 11/27 | 21/27 | 21/27 | 18/27 | |||
October belonged to unscripted filler On Brand with Jimmy Fallon, then sophomore comedy Happy's Place took over. It looked OK at the start of the season, hovering a little below its Plus from last season. The fall average suffered as it aired all the way out to December 19, posting a 60 Plus in the fall finale. It got a newbie companion in Stumble, which looked decent in its first three weeks before... stumbling to sub-two-thirds retention in the December episodes.
winter
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | Happy's Place | Lopez Vs. Lopez | Dateline | 73 | |||
| 83 | 66 | 72 | |||||
| 74 | 72 | 72 | |||||
| 2025-26 | Happy's Place | Stumble | Dateline | 69 (-6%) | |||
| 90 (+9%) | 61 (-7%) | 65 (-10%) | |||||
| 76 (+2%) | 65 (-10%) | 65 (-10%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +17% | -4% | -11% | 0% | |||
| Rank | 5/27 | 16/27 | 17/27 | 11/27 | |||
Happy's Place was up and down in the winter, much like in season one, but mostly up, and it added up to a nice bounce over last winter's average. Stumble improved a bit as well, getting back to around two-thirds retention, but that wasn't enough to save it.
spring
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-25 | Grosse Pointe Garden Society | Dateline | 52 | ||||
| 39 | 58 | 58 | |||||
| 2025-26 | Happy's Place | Dateline | 72 (+39%) | ||||
| 78 (+100%) | 70 (+20%) | 69 (+18%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +44% | +11% | +2% | +17% | |||
| Rank | 3/27 | 7/27 | 10/27 | 6/27 | |||
Because of the Olympic interruption, Happy's Place ended up airing deeper into the spring, including a couple 8:30 episodes (one after the Artemis II splashdown and one as part of a two-episode finale).
Rating the Ratings (about grades)
| Name | Lo | Avg | Hi | y2y | Plus | Label | Plusy2y | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| On Brand with Jimmy Fallon | 0.1 | 0.17 | 0.2 | 56 | flop | |||
| Happy's Place | 0.2 | 0.24 | 0.3 | -10% | 81 | hit(Fri) | -4% | detail |
| Stumble | 0.1 | 0.20 | 0.6 | 68 | solid(Fri) | detail | ||
| Dateline Fri* | 0.1 | 0.19 | 0.2 | -11% | 63 | solid(Fri) | -6% | detail |
Happy's Place: Definitely not as splashy a sophomore season as the likes of St. Denis Medical and Shifting Gears, and it's still a little schizophrenic ratings-wise, but the end result was another solid performance. Grade: B.
Stumble: 57 Plus without its Olympics preview. I do wonder if this was some kind of record for fewest total episodes aired following an Olympic preview; it had just three eps remaining and then got cancelled. Anyway, it perked up enough in the winter that I would say it wasn't a huge disaster, but it was noticeably weaker than Lopez vs. Lopez last season and not worth keeping. NBC will look for multi-cam synergy as newbie Newlyweds takes over next season. Grade: D+.
Dateline Fri: It was down a little, as were its comedy lead-ins, and like a lot of other NBC shows it kinda came back to life in the post-Olympics period. 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 | 2024-25
Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for NBC Friday.
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