The Breakdown: NBC Thursday in 2025-26 (Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU, The Hunting Party)

It's time for a journey through the NBC Thursday schedule in 2025-26...


fall

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2024-25	Law and Order		Law and Order	Law and Order: SVU		Law and Order: SVU	Found		Found	90
	2024-25	92		92	110		110	68			68	90
2025-26	Law and Order		Law and Order	Law and Order: SVU		Law and Order: SVU	Law and Order: Organized Crime (R)		Law and Order: Organized Crime (R)	75 (-17%)
	2025-26	76 (-17%)		76.3820006994321	95 (-14%)		95 (-14%)	54 (-20%)			54 (-20%)	75.0220733487195
VsAvg	-31%		-0.306870745517824	-23%		-0.231009517596629	-57%		-0.573422937425425	-37%
Rank	18/27		18/27	19/27		19/27	24/27		24/27	21/27

Fall was the worst period for the L&O duo last year, and it was by far the worst period for them again this year, with hefty drops compared against last year's already sluggish results. Peacock-relocated spin-off Organized Crime ended up back on NBC with repeats, performing much worse than the show usually did in NBC originals.

winter

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2024-25	Law and Order		Law and Order	Law and Order: SVU		Law and Order: SVU	Found		Found	99
	2024-25	104		104	119		119	73			73	99
2025-26	Law and Order		Law and Order	Law and Order: SVU		Law and Order: SVU	The Hunting Party		The Hunting Party	83 (-16%)
	2025-26	92 (-11%)		92.3818733413897	102 (-15%)		102 (-15%)	53 (-27%)			53 (-27%)	82.5500675440128
VsAvg	-18%		-0.183303953858104	-17%		-0.169764286366137	-56%		-0.559322825846893	-31%
Rank	15/27		15/27	20/27		20/27	23/27		23/27	19/27

Both of the L&O's picked up in the winter, but they did that last year as well, so the trends stayed in the negative double digits. Sophomore The Hunting Party was essentially indistinguishable from the Organized Crime repeats and had worse trends at 10/9c than the L&O's.

spring

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2024-25	Law and Order		Law and Order	Law and Order: SVU		Law and Order: SVU	Found		Found	87
	2024-25	89		89	107		107	63			63	87
2025-26	Law and Order		Law and Order	Law and Order: SVU		Law and Order: SVU	The Hunting Party		The Hunting Party	78 (-10%)
	2025-26	83 (-6%)		83.0005815562916	98 (-9%)		98 (-9%)	54 (-15%)			54 (-15%)	78.2304331909875
VsAvg	-16%		-0.159191113214474	-17%		-0.171030886057952	-54%		-0.543032070498558	-30%
Rank	15/27		15/27	17/27		17/27	25/27		25/27	18/27

The L&O's held up well in the spring last year and even better this year, outrating their fall averages and ekeing out single-digit drops instead of double-digit ones.

Rating the Ratings (about grades)

Name	Lo	Avg	Hi	y2y	Plus	Label	Plusy2y	Results
Law and Order*	0.2	0.25	0.3	-16%	83	marginal	-11%	detail
Law and Order: SVU*	0.2	0.29	0.3	-17%	98	marginal	-12%	detail
The Hunting Party	0.1	0.16	0.2	-23%	54	flop	-19%	detail

Law and Order: I was kind to these shows because they held up so well in the spring last year and they definitely did that again, but only by a little better than last year and it might be an Olympics thing. Need to denote that they were a notch below the Chicagos trend-wise in the first two hours. Grade: C.

Law and Order: SVU: See above. Grade: C.

The Hunting Party: Probably a hot take but this didn't bomb quite as hard as I thought it would, since it was already in flop territory as a Voice lead-out last year. It was definitely weaker than Found last year but I'm not sold that it was much weaker than Found would've been this year. It's all academic, though, because it's still not an acceptable level. Grade: D+. NBC needs a shake-up and will try to get it from Peacock unscripted sensation The Traitors leading into the L&O's.

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 Thursday: 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 Thursday.