Hannibal's Summer Debut is its Savior 

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I write about the television business. Why networks cancel your favorite shows, why sure things don’t go to series, why the Nielsen ratings still matter, if it concerns the small screen, it concerns me too. I\'ve studied media since college and have been covering television since 2009 for sites such as FilmSchoolRejects.com and ScreenInvasion.com. In that time I\'ve learned it’s one of the most fascinating entertainment mediums to explore. It’s a medium that runs a million miles a minute where one week’s smash hit can be another week’s failure. It takes a trained eye to understand its complexity, and that’s what I intend to do.

The author is a Forbes contributor. The opinions expressed are those of the writer.

When discussing summer television, success comes down to the basics of so many other industries: location, location, location. Summer on cable is a place of fierce competition where only the deadliest of programming survive. This is a time were shows such as

clean up in astounding ways – especially on Sundays. However, on broadcast, summer is a time for experimentation and play. It’s a time where series that didn’t work can be burned off, and riskier fair can be tried because ratings expectations aren’t as high. So, considering that, it’s not at all a surprise NBC has opted to move

At the network’s TCA presentation this morning, NBC revealed the third season of the always on the bubble series would debut not in the mid-season like its predecessors, but rather in a summer position. Of course, this move was immediately met with outrange by fans who are now yelling to the rafters, “NBC is intentionally killing our show!” However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, this move is NBC trying to save the show from an otherwise certain fate.

other series, it would have already been cancelled by now. If it were any other show, it would have barely squeaked by with a second season pick-up and most certainly would not have received a third. But,

gives NBC something none of its other shows do – not even

. It’s the show the network can point to and proclaim, “see, we do keep challenging content on the air.” However, unlike

as it’s a show produced by Gaumont International Television and not Universal – and this has always been the crux of the problem.

on the air as none of the series’ exclusive streaming deals at outlets like Amazon pay into NBC. All the peacock has to make money off of are the live and DVR time shifted ratings… and those are terrible. Not kind of not good, not meh, terrible. They are bad. Some of the worst on broadcast television. So, in order to justify keeping

on the air, NBC has to find slots for the series that don’t carry expectation. This is why the series was originally moved to Friday in season two – because Friday at 10pm equals less ratings expectation, which means the low numbers end up being closer to their desired outcome. Now think about this prospect from a summer perspective.

Summer is an untapped resource for broadcast TV that’s starting to gain momentum in the form of “event” shows from the likes of Fox with

was a chance to live. No one expects ratings dominance from broadcast in the summer, so no matter what numbers the series does, it does them well or close enough to well to warrant still being on the air. It’s the same logic that makes the $73 million grossing

NBC’s summer move of the series isn’t the network trying to kill it, it’s the network trying to save it, and, as previous stated, it’s the only show that would receive this treatment in the first place. Any other program would be dead by now regardless of the network it was on.

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