Wolf Entertainment’s slate of NBC series will remain intact. Days after the network renewed the company’s three Chicago dramas, it has done the same for the two Law & Order ones, Law & Order: SVU and the mothership series.
SVU, headlined by Mariska Hargitay, will return for a record 27th season. Law & Order, which took a 12-year cancellation break, will be back for its 25th season. Both are having their best seasons on Peacock in total viewers in Live+35, having reached combined more than 44 million total viewers across linear and digital platforms this season.
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The two Law & Order renewals were never in doubt: as Deadline reported exclusively, in anticipation of SVU‘s pickup, the series last month tapped Michele Fazekas as new showrunner, the first woman to run the veteran procedural.
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Yet, like the One Chicago ones, the renewals were not straightforward and involved some cost-trimming, I hear, something virtually every series vying for a pickup has to contend with in the current economic environment.
Law & Order: SVU is considered a TV unicorn. It is reasonably priced for a show filmed in the U.S., headlined by one of the biggest TV stars on American television, Hargitay, in an iconic role, for 26 seasons running, with a big-name co-star, Ice-T, who has been on the show for 25 seasons.
According to sources, SVU‘s budget is in the $5million-$6million an episode range, which is almost unheard of for a drama of that kind (and age).
Because of how lean the production has been run for decades, SVU typically is not subjected to the same financial scrutiny as other series.
That and SVU being a multi-platform superstar — doing solid business for NBC on linear, ranking just below the three Chicago dramas, and crushing it on streaming as Peacock’s perennial #1 most watched series on the platform. Still finding ways to grow after all these years, it is up 5% vs. last season on Peacock.
Still, the drama underwent some trims with recent cast additions Juliana Martinez and Octavio Pisano leaving as series regulars after one and three seasons, respectively.
Law & Order is facing deeper cuts, I hear. It has a starry cast, dominated by big-name actors: Tony Goldwyn, Hugh Dancy, Maura Tierney, Mehcad Brooks and Reid Scott, joined by Odelya Halevi, which likely is bringing the above-the-line costs up.
I hear at least some of the main cast members don’t have deals for next season, so those have to be hammered out. Like with the Chicago series, I hear further reductions on the number of episodes each actor is in and no year-to-year pay bumps are on the table, with some sources indicating that salary cuts are possible too.
While not as big across linear and streaming like SVU and One Chicago, Law & Order is right behind them with solid delivery and an impressive +112% viewership increase on Peacock (L+35) vs. last season. The series is executive produced by Dick Wolf, Rick Eid, Pamela Wechsler, Alex Hall and Peter Jankowski.
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is executive produced by Dick Wolf, David Graziano, Julie Martin, Mariska Hargitay, Norberto Barba, Kenneth Brown and Peter Jankowski.
Both shows are produced by Universal Television, a division of Universal Studio Group, in association with Wolf Entertainment.
In addition to One Chicago, Law & Order and SVU join previously renewed freshman NBC comedies St. Denis Medical and Happy’s Place.
