Amber Ruffin’s Peacock show is headed to the Peacock network— at least for a couple weeks. NBC announced today it will broadcast episodes of Ruffin’s self-titled (and now WGA Award–nominated) late-night show on two upcoming Fridays (February 26 and March 5) at approximately 1:30 a.m., just hours after said episodes drop on the network’s streaming sibling, Peacock. The move means Ruffin’s show will follow episodes of Late Night With Seth Meyers — where Ruffin continues to appear as a performer — and temporarily displace the regularly scheduled A Little Late With Lilly Singh. However, since Singh’s show airs reruns on Fridays (as does Late Night), the scheduling order of A Little Late originals won’t be impacted — and NBC gets some newish content for the time slot.
This decision is probably less about adding content to NBC and more about giving The Amber Ruffin Show visibility beyond the relatively small Peacock universe (though NBC might bring in some extra ad revenue from the move). While there would be some logic to NBC’s making this a permanent thing, the network’s affiliates might balk at that, since Ruffin’s program hails from Peacock. Those local stations have been pushing back against NBC’s moves to blur the lines between network and streamer: Last year, for example, most refused to air a special 30 Rock reunion because it was designed to hype Peacock, and they also had a hand in derailing Peacock’s plan to stream The Tonight Show and Late Night before they aired on NBC. Hopefully, this scheduling means NBC’s affiliates have learned to chill a little (and accept our streaming reality).
