While he’s clearly their late-night leader, Jimmy Fallon could suffer from a very specific decision NBC’s made about their fall schedule. Enough viewers seem to dislike Fallon’s focus on humor as opposed to politics that he rarely ranks high on lists of TV’s best talk show hosts, but he’s still big enough that losing him would undoubtedly hurt the network.
On the heels of ABC soft-canceling Jimmy Kimmel, the notion of any talk show host reeling it in for popularity’s sake has become more controversial than ever. To his credit, Jimmy Fallon has never branded his show as anything other than something he wants both parties to enjoy. Unfortunately, politics aside, Fallon has another host of issues to contend with.
NBC’s Fall 2025 NBA Schedule Moves Jimmy Fallon’s On Brand To The Friday Death Slot
The New Series Only Has A Few Weeks To Prove Itself On Tuesdays
Technically, NBC already made it impossible for Jimmy Fallon’s On Brand to avoid the death slot because On Brand will air on both Tuesdays and Fridays from the very night it begins. This means that initial episodes will air in a competitive time slot, but at least one night a week will allow room for the series to fail absolutely.
However, that schedule will change drastically once basketball season begins. As NBC starts airing games every Tuesday, The Voice will fall back to relying on its prominent Monday slot to rake in viewership. At the same time, Fallon’s On Brand will move solely to the Friday night death slot for its last few episodes, including the competition’s first season finale.
This isn’t necessarily the end of the world for Fallon’s new show. NBC has relegated far bigger names to the so-called death slot before. Even now, Reba McEntire’s Happy’s Place season 2 is set to reclaim its Friday slot as soon as On Brand finishes. And, in its first season, Happy’s Place garnered ratings comparable to most midweek procedural dramas.
Nonetheless, there’s generally concern when a major star or series is sentenced to “death.” NBC saw some of the worst backlash from this in the 1960s, when Trekkies flooded the network with angry letters over Star Trek being moved to Fridays. And while it’s hard to imagine a fan of Fallon’s being quite so uptight, there’s definitely cause for concern.
Why NBC’s Scheduling Shift Is Bad News For Jimmy Fallon’s On Brand
Few Shows Survive Friday Scheduling For Obvious Reasons
To begin, it’s important to note that several network shows have survived the so-called death slot, including some of the longest-running TV series ever, such as The X-Files. On NBC in particular, shows to successfully ride the Friday death train include Miami Vice and The Rockford Files, both of which were smash successes for years in their chosen time slots.
However, the death slot didn’t earn its name without good reason. NBC also tends to use the slot as a cheapened farewell tour, allowing shows like Knight Rider and The A-Team to perish on Fridays at the end of their runs. After NBC’s 2024-2025 cancelations, Lopez vs. Lopez and Grosse Pointe Garden Society are the death slot’s most recent victims.
NBC’s 2025 NBA deal is huge for them after roughly 20 years apart from one of the most lucrative organizations in broadcast television, so On Brand obviously can’t stay on Tuesdays. But, while ABC once proved with its TGIF sitcom lineup that Friday nights can be marketable, On Brand won’t share its programming block with anything other than NBC’s Dateline.
This makes the first few weeks that Fallon’s show airs on Tuesdays even more vital to its overall success. Even taking the existence of DVR into account, viewers who aren’t already fans of Fallon and his talk show will be less likely to see the Friday broadcasts. They’ll have to see it on Tuesday to know if it’s worth recording.
Jimmy Fallon’s On Brand Hints At A Bigger Problem With NBC’s Fall 2025 Schedule
This Isn’t The First Time NBC Ignored Their Most Original Series
​Fallon’s On Brand, with its focus on creative competitors pitching ad campaigns to billionaire corporations, certainly isn’t the most unique reality competition idea on television. NBC’s The Apprentice incorporated marketing challenges all the time, and that show somehow turned its least likable contestant into a White House Public Liaison. Fallon’s new show probably won’t pull off anything quite so extravagant.
Nonetheless, On Brand is certainly a unique concept compared to the harem dating shows and talent competitions reality TV fans usually have to choose from. That’s a great reason to put some value on Fallon’s success. Unfortunately, the same network recently destroyed reality TV’s most unique premise in years due to what seemed like a similar lack of faith.
Destination X had everything it needed to become the most interesting reality show on television. They secured an iconic host, an array of contestants with memorable personalities and (more importantly) unique skillsets, and the baked-in promise of an educational experience every time you tuned in. The show teaches viewers about history, geography, culture, and even bird watching of all things.
There’s something wholesome about a competition where the revelation that you lost is followed by a chance to walk out into a random European country and share a beer with Negan from The Walking Dead. Unfortunately, the producers ruined the show’s best concepts by increasing focus on backstabbing and shady alliances with every episode. They didn’t trust originality to sell.
Now, Jimmy Fallon’s On Brand suggests that NBC still doesn’t trust its more unique reality concepts. Just as they didn’t trust Destination X to succeed without essentially turning it into The Snake, an intriguing look at the ad world is pushed to the death slot so a 20-year-old singing competition can shine on Mondays.
On the plus side, The Tonight Show is unaffected by this. So, even if On Brand isn’t getting quite the treatment it deserves, Fallon is at least doing better than roughly 50% of American late-night hosts at the moment.
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