NBC has set the premiere date for the David Boreanaz "Rockford Files" reboot, January 2 after an NFL telecast, with a regular Thursday 8 p.m. slot starting January 7, and launched a Jim Rockford hotline you can actually call at (760) JIM-ROCK, per Variety. The number plays a message from Boreanaz and signs you up for text updates.
The original show opened every episode on an answering machine. "Hi, you've reached Jim Rockford. I can't come to the phone right now, but I'll get back to you as soon as possible." That cold open is the entire brand. So NBC's plan to sell the reboot is a phone number that plays a message.
I'm naming the mechanism: a cold open is a promotional asset now. The network took a 1974 opening credit, gave it a 760 area code, and called it audience engagement.
A hotline is not a hotline. A hotline is for when you have a problem. This is a voicemail with a phone number. You call it and Jim Rockford tells you Jim Rockford will be on television in two months. If the message runs longer than 30 seconds, NBC has made an infomercial out of a man who never called people back.
The schedule is the real tell. The premiere runs after the NFL telecast. NBC is admitting, in its own schedule, that the football game owns the audience and the reboot gets the leftover 8 p.m. slot. Boreanaz plays a man "newly paroled after doing time for a crime he didn't commit." The logline is doing a lot of work. So is the football.
YOUR TURN: call (760) JIM-ROCK. Report back. Did Jim Rockford get back to you, or is that the whole point?
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