Nikki Finke reports (ok, she was the person who said the Chuck announcement would come Monday, but still):
3RD UPDATE: I've learned why announcements regarding the renewal fates of Chuck and My Name Is Earl have been delayed. And it involves more horsetrading than the Triple Crown. My sources tell me that NBC lowballed the Earl license fee, and the show's owner, Twentieth Century Fox, came back with a proposal which NBC has been sitting on for a few days. As for Chuck, this gets complicated. Turns out NBC didn't like David E Kelley's Warner Bros pilot Legally Mad. Problem is, there's a $2 million penalty that gets paid to WB if the network doesn't pick up the show. So NBC is hoping to work a deal tying the renewal of Chuck, which is also a WB show, to a pass on paying that Legally Mad penalty.
Separately, we are also hearing that some of the issue with the shows that NBC has yet to make a decision on is hinging on the ability of the studios to renegotiate contracts in order to lower costs.
Sorry, the comments are still off, but a site up with no comments is better than site down with no comments. Perhaps not much better, and hardly optimal, but...
