ABC’s fairly stable schedule for the start of the 2025-26 season is the product of not just a successful preceding season, but several years of work, Disney Television Group president Craig Erwich says.
The network hasn’t ordered a lot of new scripted series in recent seasons — the highest single total was five in 2022-23 — but it has gone all in on marketing the handful of shows it has picked up. That has helped build a roster of newer shows to run alongside long-time staples like Grey’s Anatomy and The Rookie, Erwich told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview Tuesday ahead of Disney’s upfront.
“Three years ago, we launched Abbott Elementary. The year after that, it was Will Trent. This past year, High Potential, which is the most successful streaming show this calendar year,” Erwich said. “It really validates that strategy.”
ABC has renewed all but two of its scripted series from this season for 2025-26 (The Conners aired its final season in the spring, and Doctor Odyssey is still on the bubble). Erwich talked with THR about the cross-platform strategy that helped ensure those renewals, the backstage upheaval at The Bachelor and ABC’s development pipeline. The interview below has been edited and condensed.
ABC released some ratings data today showing it has the top five shows [High Potential, Abbott Elementary, The Rookie, 911 and Shifting Gears] among adults 18-49 this season in Nielsen’s cross-platform ratings. As you talk with advertisers, are they understanding that a lot of that total audience is coming from streaming, which might not have the same kind of ad load as an on-air broadcast?
This year was the first time that we were able to see competitive streaming ratings, which gives you some transparency and a level to set on our competitors. When we looked at that, we had the top five shows in 18-49 [not including sports]. What I think about is first of all, that’s the way that people watch television, so it should be measured in a modern way. Why are we so successful at it? We have multiple platforms in the Disney ecosystem, but we’re expert at creating singular events out of those multiple platforms. We’ve gotten really, really, really good at this. The handoff between ABC and Hulu, just to name two of the platforms, works seamlessly. We’re capturing our viewers where they are.
It benefits the shows as well. Will Trent, for instance — for that show to grow year over year [in the 18-49 demographic], the only broadcast show to do so, kind of is remarkable. It’s a testament to not just how great the show is, but to the structure and the ecosystem that we’ve mastered here.
Would you say marketers are knowledgable about the way that that viewing breaks down now, and that they’re going to capture most of those viewers not necessarily at 8 o’clock on a Tuesday, but in the days after?
We’re all in New York for a Disney upfront, which is really where we get to talk about our entire portfolio, our entire ecosystem, and the massive reach that the Walt Disney Company has.
The Bachelor and Bachelorette have gone through a lot of backstage upheaval and changes in the past few months. Where do things stand with that in terms of finding a new showrunner and starting the machinery back up to have those on the air again?
The uber Bachelor machinery is going 100 miles an hour at ABC. We’re getting ready to launch Bachelor in Paradise, which for the first time will have the Goldens as well as the young people. I was just in a meeting with [Walt Disney Television unscripted head] Rob Mills, and he was telling me that the Golden Bachelor people are staying up much later and partying even more than the younger people. I haven’t seen anything, but I anticipate a very, very good installment of Bachelor in Paradise. And then after that, we have The Golden Bachelor, and we’ve got a really special guy with Mel Owens.
The Bachelor is no different than any other show. You have to have the exact right casting. You have to have the exact right people. We’re taking tremendous care with a very singular and beloved franchise, and we’ll continue to roll those out as they’re ready.
Can you say whether you have a new showrunner for those series yet?
Not yet.
I wanted to ask about development as well. As ABC, like all other broadcasters, have moved into a year-round cycle and are ordering fewer pilots and script to series projects, does that impact your ability at all to say “We might need something at midseason” and have a project ready to go?
We launch shows year-round, which means we have the opportunity to develop year-round, which [in turn] means that we have ability to make pilots when the pilots are ready. We’re not forced to have them all done at the same time. Each one can get the care and nurturing to be as excellent as it needs to be, to be worthy of being ordered to the schedule. We’re focused on a very set slate of shows, which is why I think we’ve been successful at returning so many shows to the schedule year over year the last few seasons. What’s great is the creative needs of the shows and the high bar [for a series pickup] really fits in with our scheduling strategy, and that just helps our success become exponential at some point.
Are there any projects you’re potentially looking to add in the near future?
We just announced a pilot that I’m really excited about, RJ Decker [from Elementary creator Rob Doherty and based on Carl Hiaasen’s novel Double Whammy]. It’s an extraordinarily funny procedural that is highly original, a very singular character. I think it’s very much in the vein of the success we’ve had on Tuesday nights with shows like The Rookie and Will Trent and High Potential, which has really become a destination night of television for us.
Not just at ABC but at other broadcast networks too, there are more very long-running shows than ever still on the air. You have Grey’s Anatomy, The Rookie, 911 — which hasn’t been on ABC for as long but is closing in on a decade total — and they’re obviously all still drawing viewers. What’s the balance you need to strike between dependable, long-running shows like that and keeping things fresh?
I would say that The Rookie and Grey’s Anatomy are not just reliable. I think they’re thriving, in that new generations of fans are continuing to discover those shows on Disney platforms. So the audience is being is being refreshed. The creative is as vibrant as ever, and we’re seeing those shows stand up with the performance of new shows as well. Grey’s was the No. 2 most streamed show in all of television last year.
Do you think people having those big libraries at their fingertips, on Hulu or also on Netflix in the case of Grey’s Anatomy, helps fuel viewing for new episodes?
Absolutely. We’re there to serve the audience however they want to watch, whenever they want to. There are people who want to come home on a Tuesday night and watch Will Trent, The Rookie and High Potential live. There are some people who want to wait for the season to be over, and then they close their doors on a weekend and watch all of them. There are people who decide, “You know what, I just want a good show to binge,” and the fact that there are 450 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, they can get into that like you would a really long book. We hear a lot about people rewatching shows with their kids. We can serve all of it.
