Ari Goldman Sends High Potential to Midseason in ABC Shift
ABC is holding high potential for midseason, pushing Season 3 out of its fall 2026 schedule. Ari Goldman said Tuesday the network wants to air the show’s full run without a break, a choice that keeps one of ABC’s signature primetime dramas off the fall grid.
Goldman, ABC’s senior vice president of content strategy and scheduling, said the move came from the network’s recent experience with uninterrupted January-to-season-end runs. He said ABC is thinking about both its linear audience and streaming viewers, and that the plan is to keep a steady rollout once the series returns.
Ari Goldman on the reset
“The ‘High Potential’ move to midseason is one that’s really born out of the success that we’ve proven over the last couple of years with ‘Will Trent,’ ‘The Rookie’ and the uninterrupted runs that we’ve enjoyed starting in that January timeframe going through the end of the season,” Goldman said. He added, “We’re thinking about the behavior of our linear audience, but also the streaming viewers, who really have shown the importance of week-over-week steadiness in planning and rolling out these shows.”
Goldman also said, “We do not take lightly the move of ‘High Potential’ to midseason, but I think this is a real opportunity to bridge through to the end of the year, to keep an uninterrupted run of episodes.” ABC plans to promote the series heavily as its return gets closer, another sign the network is treating the delay as a scheduling strategy rather than a retreat.
R.J. Decker takes Tuesday
‘R.J. Decker’ gets the Tuesday 10 p.m. slot that had been filled by high potential last fall. Goldman said the series opened “phenomenally well” on the network and “really held up across its season,” noting that ABC never dipped below 3 million viewers on linear ratings.
He also said the week after the finale was the biggest streaming week for the show to date. ABC is repeating R.J. Decker heavily through the summer, with Goldman saying, “I think the signs are there to be able to nurture this one into an even bigger story.”
ABC’s fall 2026 tradeoff
ABC’s fall 2026 schedule, announced Tuesday, is mostly similar to last year’s aside from the swap at Tuesday 10 p.m. ‘High Potential’ produced 18 episodes in Season 2, and ABC has not yet commented on the episode count for Season 3, though Goldman said the network is still looking at a “really full season.”
For viewers, the move means the show is being held back not because it disappeared from the lineup, but because ABC wants its next stretch to run straight through. That is a cleaner programming bet than splitting the season, and it gives the network a stronger midseason anchor if the rollout lands the way Goldman expects.
