Comedy Night Done Right

"Comedy Night Done Right" (2006–2012)

After "Must See TV" ended its first run in the spring of 2006; the Tuesday comedy night was retired entirely, leaving Thursdays, NBC's only programming night for sitcoms. The network's Thursday lineup for the 2006–07 season initially consisted of an hour of sitcoms (My Name Is Earl and The Office), followed by Deal or No Deal, and then by ER. In November 2006, in order to bring back again the Thursday two-hour comedy night, NBC rebranded the Thursday format with a different slogan, "Comedy Night Done Right", and added Scrubs and new arrival 30 Rock to the lineup, forming an entire lineup of comedy series without laugh tracks or the multiple-camera setup common with past "Must See TV" comedies. 30 Rock received critical acclaim from critics and audiences since its release, ranking as one of the great TV comedies of all-time, as well as earning several awards and accolades, such as the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series for three consecutive years (plus receiving four more nominations after that). However, despite re-establishing its Thursday lineup, the other three networks began to outrate the entire lineup as a whole, which was consistently beaten by Survivor, CSI and Shark on CBS; Grey's Anatomy and Ugly Betty on ABC; and Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? on Fox. Even ER, which was a number-one hit for most of the 1990s, dropped out of the top-30 for the first time that season. By that point, NBC reached a new low, ending the 2006–07 season in fourth place (behind CBS, Fox and ABC).