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Netflix, NBC & What Makes a TV Hit in 2021: A ‘Manifest’-o

It’s an open question whether Peacock, or any streamer but Netflix, can make make an off-network show a hit—but NBC can certainly try harder.

J.R. Ramirez as Jared Vazquez, Melissa Roxburgh as Michaela Stone, Matt Long as Zeke Landon, Ellen Tamaki as Drea Mikami in a scene from Manifest episode 313
Photo by Peter Kramer/NBC
Matthew Belloni
August 29, 2021

When the epitaph for broadcast television is written, it won’t be streaming video that is credited as the killer; it’ll be the networks’ inability to adapt to an on-demand ecosystem and co-exist with (and even capitalize on) what streaming does well. The Manifest situation perfectly illustrates the limitations of the current thinking.