You know that 30 Rock reunion coming up this week? Well, there’s a great chance you won’t be able to watch when it premieres on Thursday night.
Vulture is reporting that most of the country’s NBC affiliates won’t be airing the special. It’s essentially an ad for the new Peacock streaming service, and it seems that companies in the TV station business aren’t too excited about promoting apps that will draw viewers (and dollars) away from them. Five different companies whose collective stations cover over half the country won’t be airing the special, so if you live in a TV market whose NBC station isn’t owned by NBC itself, don’t expect to find Kenneth Parcell on your TV screen right at 8 p.m. on Thursday.
Sinclair Broadcast Group, Hearst, Nexstar, Gray Television and Tegna are the companies whose stations won’t be airing the reunion. Tegna owns 11 Alive here in Atlanta, so that means Kenneth’s family back in Stone Mountain won’t be able to watch his return to TV. Dang. You might want to check your local listings, though; Deadline later reported that “not 100% of their stations are part of the pullout,” and perhaps you’ll be one of the lucky ones.
Of course, this is 2020. You don’t have to rely on local stations to watch almost anything anymore. The 30 Rock reunion will be airing on NBC’s website, will be posted to Peacock on Friday, and will also be available through the on demand section of your cable provider. Still, if you were hoping for a nostalgic flashback to the days of actually watching a show when it originally airs, and don’t live in the 12 markets where NBC owns its own station, then this has got to be a bummer.
If you haven’t watched the trailer for the 30 Rock reunion, here it is. It’s not going to be one of those Zoom deals like Parks and Recreation did, so it might actually feel like a real episode. Some of us will get to find out this week.