The Blacklist just earned an early season 7 renewal at NBC and with that renewal comes new deals for the series’ stars.
The pickup had been in the works for a while. Standard broadcast series’ cast contracts are for six years and star James Spader had renegotiated his contract early on. The rest of the cast had yet to extend their contracts beyond the initial six years so new deals had to be made for them as well. Sony TV inked new pacts with co-lead Megan Boone and the other two original series regular cast members Diego Klatenhoff and Harry Lennix. Securing the core cast paved the way to a Season 7 renewal.
The Blacklist was a massive hit when it debuted on NBC in 2013 behind The Voice on Monday. It took a hit when the network decided to move the show to Thursday nights during season 2. NBC used a post-Super Bowl airing to give it a pop and while that episode did see some ratings gains, The Blacklist never came close to the ratings heights of its first season on Monday. It has been a relatively consistent ratings performer, boosted by solid DVR gains. It has also been a reliable utility player having been assigned 5 different time slots on four different nights over its six seasons. Most recently the show airs on Fridays at 9 PM.
Airing on a low-trafficked Friday night, The Blacklist is averaging a respectable 1.2 rating in adults 18-49 and 7.3 million viewers overall in Live+7 Nielsen ratings. It has also been a strong delayed gainer, growing by 119% from Live+Same Day to L+7 in adults 18-49 (from a 0.57 rating to a 1.25) and by 3.4 million viewers (3.9 million to 7.3 million). Another interesting fact is that The Blacklist is also this season’s #1 most upscale drama on the Big 4 networks among adults 18-49 living in homes with $100K+ incomes, indexing at a 140 among those viewers in L+7 results, which is important when selling advertising. Additionally, because of NBCUniversal’s ownership in the show (initially 25%, increased to 50% early in the series’ run), NBC has a financial incentive to keep The Blacklist on the air. The show also is a big profits generator for Sony TV from international sales and the lucrative SVOD pact with Netflix.
