NBC counts on ‘Earl,’ not ‘Joey’

NBC’s “My Name Is Earl” is about one man’s quest for good karma. And that’s what the show will probably need to survive on Thursdays.

Following weeks of speculation, the beleaguered network announced Thursday it will move “Earl,” its most successful new program, from 9 p.m. Tuesdays to 9 p.m. Thursdays, where the ad dollars and the competitive pressures are even higher. The changes take place the week of Jan. 2. Missing from the new lineup will be “Joey,” the struggling “Friends” spinoff that will come back later next year, but probably not on Thursday.

The hope is that “Earl” can help revive NBC’s old “must-see” block of comedies, which ruled Thursday nights for many years. The other shows in the new block are “Will & Grace,” currently in its final season, plus “Four Kings,” a new buddy comedy from the “Will & Grace” creators, and the perpetually low-rated “The Office,” also moving from Tuesday.

“Earl” has delivered solid if unspectacular ratings so far this season, but its new home might be another story. The show will now land in the middle of one of TV’s toughest time periods, where it will square off against the unsmiling, scalpel-wielding detectives of CBS’ “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” television’s most-watched series.

NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly said he’s aiming for a long-term goal rather than an instant payoff. “We’re getting back to the roots with a four-comedy block,” he said in an interview. “This is not about fixing ratings now ... I wouldn’t expect that all of a sudden, we’re taking down ‘CSI.’ ”

NBC made the blitz of scheduling changes one day after the end of the November “sweeps” rating period, where the network finished with a disappointing third place among both total viewers and adults aged 18 to 49, the category advertisers find most important. CBS easily won the sweep among total viewers (14.6 million nightly prime-time average), trailed by ABC (11.7 million), NBC (9.6 million) and Fox (7.7 million), according to data from Nielsen Media Research.

But industry veterans paid closer attention to the race in the 18-49 demographic, where a resurgent ABC pulled off a tie with CBS for No. 1, giving the Walt Disney Co.-owned network its first sweep victory in more than five years.

In perhaps the most puzzling move, NBC will replace “Earl” and “The Office” with back-to-back new episodes of “Scrubs,” the perennially ratings-challenged comedy heading into its fifth season. Reilly called it “an inventive and quality show.”

At 10 p.m. Fridays, NBC will debut the religious-themed drama “The Book of Daniel,” which replaces the canceled infertility drama “Inconceivable.” Also missing from Fridays: “Three Wishes,” the feel-good reality show with Amy Grant that was once considered one of NBC’s brightest hopes. Reilly classified its fate as “up in the air.”

Temporarily lost in the Thursday shuffle are “Joey” and Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice,” the onetime reality powerhouse that has seen its ratings sink this year. But NBC said both shows will return sometime after the Winter Olympics, which start Feb. 10.