In early January, NBC premiered the first episode of its quirky new musical-drama Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, airing it behind a special episode of Ellen's Game of Games. On Sunday night, the network will finally air the show's next episode. This is not how things usually work in TV — but there is a purpose behind the Peacock's protracted Playlist pause.
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. NBC's hope: Younger audiences who've been abandoning linear TV will take notice of Zoey before it settles into its weekly broadcast run. "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, the network's co-head of scripted programming.
Early evidence suggests NBC's strategy may be working. The network tells Vulture that viewership of Zoey on its digital platforms (NBC.com and the NBC app), combined with Hulu, YouTube, and Facebook has been large enough to make it the NBC's top digital launch of all time, surpassing previous record-holder Manifest (which, in fairness, didn't have the advantage of being on YouTube or Facebook). NBC also says between 3.5 million and 4 million have watched the full 43-minute Zoey episode via YouTube alone, matching the 3.7 million people who caught the show via live TV or DVR within a week of its first broadcast on the network.