ABC President Talks Cougar Town, Private Practice, General Hospital

With the start of January comes another round of a scoop filled month at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, with highly anticipated insider info from the creators and writers of some of the best television shows in prime time.

At the same token there’s also some insight from studio executives who are usually unseen figures (with the exception of the Upfronts in May) that make the big calls usually around this time for renewals, premature cancellations and show shuffles.

Earlier today ABC president Paul Lee said that Courteney Cox’s (is she still an Arquette these days?) Cougar Town may be benched, but it certainly isn’t out for the count, stating that “The reality is I think Cougar Town is having one of its best [seasons].We haven’t yet landed on where it’s going to go, but it’s tentatively in there for March. We’re going to give it a good launching pad… We will be [announcing a premiere date] in a couple weeks.”

Sounds promising. Unlike the case for the lone soap opera show General Hospital whose future remains uncertain. Regarding its future Lee went on to say that he doesn’t have a time frame to make the call for cancellation yet.

In terms of experimenting with its schedule Lee isn’t shying away from anything out of the ordinary. A whole new comedy night will be created and don’t be surprised if you see Cougar Town in the mix along with Happy Endings and midseason newcomer Don’t Trust the B—- in the James Van Der Beek’s satirized comedy Apartment 23. “It will be great to have a group of great irreverent comedies together. That’s the dream.”

The shuffling around doesn’t stop there! Thursday night’s 10pm slot is going to get either pretty interesting or remain dead very quickly with a new series from Grey’s Anatomy/Private Practice creator Shonda Rhimes called Scandal. The creator’s Private Practice will move from its regularly scheduled time slot to Tuesday’s at 10pm following the Dancing With The Stars results show.

Latsly, if you’re bored with what’s already on your television screen, ABC has a slew of midseason replacements and spring replacements with Apartment 23 premiering on April 11th on Wednesday’s at 9:30pm, and Scandal which premieres on April 5th on Thursday’s at 10pm.