Why NBC waited more than a month between airing Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist's first and second episodes

Vulture

The musical comedy from Paul Feig premiered on Jan. 7 after a special episode of Ellen's Game of Games. Its second episode airs on Sunday, Feb. 16. Why the long wait? "NBC has used the long gap between installments of the Jane Levy–led series to make it ubiquitous, striking deals to place the show’s first episode on a slew of large digital platforms like YouTube, Hulu, Facebook, and Spotify, while also embedding the hour in ads the network took out on sites such as Playbill, Bustle, and yes, Vulture," explains Josef Adalian. "NBC’s hope: Younger audiences who’ve been abandoning linear TV will take notice of Zoey before it settles into its weekly broadcast run" on Sunday. “We’re approaching the launch and the marketing of the show in a way that would attract the people that might not necessarily come and see it on a linear platform,” says Liza Katz, NBC's co-head of scripted programming. Indeed, Zoey's pilot has more than 40 million views on YouTube since it was uploaded shortly after its premiere.