NBC sends Quarterlife packing to Bravo :: Music News :: Articles

New NBC series Quarterlife has been shifted to the Bravo network after a single airing due to low ratings, The New York Times reports.

According to Nielson estimates, 3.9 million viewers tuned in to the series’ pilot episode Feb. 26 on NBC, the worst performance by a show in the network’s 10 p.m. slot in at least 17 years. Several days after the series’ debut, an NBC spokesman confirmed the show would continue its run on the Bravo cable channel.

Quarterlife originated as an Internet-based series produced in eight-minute webisodes that aired twice a week on MySpacetv.com. The shows centers on blog-savvy twenty-something Dylan and her five roommates, each trying to balance dead-end jobs, relationships and post-graduate life. The show was created by Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, a team that practically invented the generational drama with past series My So-Called Life, Thirtysomething and Once and Again.

Industry observers watched with interest when NBC announced plans to air hour-long episodes of Quarterlife, annointing the show as the first network series ever to originate on the Internet. The show premiered on a Tuesday night, after which the network had planned to plug the series into its Sunday night line-up (that slot will now be filled with Dateline NBC and reruns of Law and Order.)

Series creator Herskovitz expressed disappointment to an audience at a Harvard Business School conference the day after the show’s premiere on NBC, but said that Quarterlife may be better suited to a cable audience. “We live in a media world today where many shows are considered successful on cable networks with audiences that are a fraction of those on the Big Four,” he said. “I’m confident that Quarterlife will find the right home on television as well.”

Can Quarterlife survive in Bravo's reality-heavy line-up, or is it destined to remain a web series? Or does a dramatic, niche-driven drama even stand a chance against the myriads of unscripted, comedic programming readily available on the Internet? Only time will tell.

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