Friday Night Lights fans can breathe easy, as good, quality television finally scored one up on the greedy, ratings-hungry broadcast networks. On Monday, it was announced that Friday Night Lights will get renewed for two additional seasons, bringing the total episodes of the critically acclaimed series up to 76.
TVOvermind reported a few weeks ago that NBC and Directv were close in their negotiations to seal this deal, which extends the unique relationship between the network and the satellite television provider. Under the agreement, DirecTV will get the episodes first, which they will air commercial free on their channel 101, just as they did this past fall. NBC will follow, mid-season, re-airing the same episodes.
Friday Night Lights has a very hard core loyal fan base; however, the show has struggled in the ratings department, regularly bringing in an average of only 4 million viewers, a minuscule number for a major network. However, due to the arrangement with DirecTV, almost half of the production costs to produce one hour of the show gets picked up by the satellite provider. This allows NBC to keep its critically successful show and still turn a profit.
It is still unclear what role Jason Katims will play moving forward, as he has been heading up the new series from ImagineTV, Parenthood. It is possible that he will remain the showrunner on both shows, but depending on when production starts on each one, he might have to make a difficult decision. Katims said, "As a TV writer, you rarely get that opportunity to know exactly what the life of your series is going to be, down to every last person who works on this show, we are invested and passionate about the future."
Source: Variety
