NEW YORK – “Friday Night Lights” will shine again next season. The acclaimed football-and-family drama will return on NBC for a third year after 13 new episodes have aired on satellite-television provider DirecTV, in an unusual deal designed to spread production costs while rekindling a series whose audience until now has been as small as it is fervent.
The series will unfold weekly for DirecTV subscribers beginning Oct. 1. Then, early in 2009, it will be seen on NBC, which made the announcement Wednesday. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Getting a jump on broadcast networks’ customary mid-May “upfront” announcements, NBC dubbed its presentation an “infront,” laying out prime-time plans (subject to change, of course) all the way through summer 2009, when reality fare will dominate.
Come fall, four new scripted series are slated: