Conan O'Brien Will Produce New Andy Richter Comedy

Conan O'Brien and his former late night talk show sidekick and friend, Andy Richter will team up for a new comedy series that will replace 30 ROCK for a few weeks starting in March. The series will be a comedy detective series, possiby even delighting fans of MONK, entitled ANDY BARKER:PI.

Richter actually plays a strip mall CPA who is mistaken for a famous private investigator, and begins to investigate cases for clients. His wife is a little suspicious of this new profession, but offers some cautious support.

With the success of MONK, there may well be room on the network TV schedule for a weekly comedy mystery show. Whether interesting and funny cases can be written and concluded in a 30 minite time limit will be some challenge compared to the normal hour long time for TV mystery dramas. But Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter are both highly skilled personalities, and they may have good instincts this time around to make a hit of this midseason replacement series.

Another midseason replacement, THE BLACK DONNELLYS, is a drama is scheduled to replace STUDIO 60 For a few weeks also beginning in March. In fact, the ratings tend to be sort of soft on both SNL loosely based series, 30 ROCK and STUDIO 60, yet NBC still has faith in both series, and both are scheduled for a return before the year is out. Neither has been cancelled yet, although a rerun of 30 ROCK actually drew only 3.9 million viewers last week; an absolutely horrible number that would normally spell certain cancellation. STUDIO 60 drew a weak 7.2 milion viewers, a huge public rejection considering that the 8PM lead-in, DEAL OR NO DEAL, drew in a fantastic 17.6 million viewers, and the excellent superhero drama, HEROES, drew in another strong 14.9 million viewers at 9PM. Compared to these powerful ratings, much of the NBC viewing public simply does not like STUDIO 60 as much, and many probably turn to CBS for CSI:MIAMI with an outstanding 18.9 million viewers to watch instead.

NBC did plan some cost cutting moves such as less new drama or comedy programs, but has apparently put this new plan on some hold for the midseason launch of two new shows. NBC is expected to offer more cheaply produced programs like reality and game shows to trim network costs next year. NBC is already seeking to recruit persons for another run of the game show IDENTITY, which is likely to return in either the Summer or Fall schedule. Since the return of AMERICAN IDOL on FOX, NBC is stuck back in fourth place with the network ratings again, and even veteran NBC bedrock series such as the LAW & ORDER franchise appear to be weakening in the ratings this year. There is even some talk of reducing costs by replacing some top actors on these series next year to cut costs at NBC. This year saw many cast changes to these shows, and not all of them for the best either.