At the yearly upfront conference in New York on Monday, NBC (NYSE: GE) announced it will go ahead with the rumored spinoff of "The Office."
While The Office has been one of the better shows for NBC, the rumor of a spinoff hasn't been that popular among those talking about it.
That's possibly because the new series has almost no clues or insights into what the show will entail in any way, or if there'll be a connection to the existing show or characters.
Another factor is NBC's commitment to containing costs, which will limit the number of pilots they'll offer to introduce new series, making it pretty much a wait-and-see situation. That will probably result in it taking a little longer for good series to get some legs.
The Office is among the first to follow this strategy, and so the spinoff will go directly to the television.
Even so, it will get a huge push from the middle of the 2009 season, when it is scheduled to launch after the broadcast of the Super Bowl on February 1 on NBC.
As for The Office itself, the show will air hourlong episodes when it returns for the entire month of September.
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