NBC announced that they are taking what was going to be a new sci-fi series and cut it back into a mini-series.

Chomp! Chomp!

In a move to save bucks and test the sci-fi waters on a more frugal budget, NBC will be airing Day One as a 4-hour miniseries instead of the planned 13 episode series they originally pitched back in May 2009.

The show will be airing after the Winter Olympics is done and if the show gets a positive response from the sci-fi handicapped Nielsen families, it will be a go.

In this article, I’m chatting a bit about advertisers cutting costs and how this might be relating to shows like Heroes and Day One.  That, and I’ve got an off-subject bonus paragraph that just might make your jaw drop!

Advertiser Revenue Down

This year, my sympathies go out to the networks struggling to survive in this economy.  The economy has caused purse strings to be tightened and advertisers to be more frugal.

The reason networks have fewer dollars to spend is because ad revenue for the upcoming season of television has declined by 22% from the year before.

If I lost 22% of my income, I’d be pretty distressed, but what a 22% decline means here is that the networks only brought in a mere $7.2 billion (that’s with a “B”) in primetime ad sales.

On Monday, May 5th 2009, The Jay Leno network NBC announced a slate of new shows at their In-Fronts for the 2009 / 2010 television season.  No the above screen shot is not from their in-fronts.  It’s a behind the scenes shot from NBC’s new show, Day One.

Keeping in mind that we here at Screen Rant are all about action / adventure and sci-fi / fantasy (with a dribble of comedy). I’ve left out some details on the new NBC comedy shows but only because we do like our action-adventure shows.  Rather than babble about what I am going to say, I might as well get right to it:

Jesse Alexander, writer-producer of such hit shows as Lost and Heroes, has sold a new show to NBC: the post-apocalyptic sci-fi drama, Day One.

How ironic is that: NBC boots Alexander off of Heroes not some three odd months ago, and here they are now shelling out for his newest creation. Hollywood… truly the land of “it’s just business, not personal.”