NBC confident in NFL football, reality TV is contingency plan

The 2011 NFL season is currently in a state of uncertainty as players and owners negotiate over a new collective bargaining agreement. When NBC released its schedule for the 2011-12 television season, NFL football was in its usual Sunday night timeslot. Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt explains that they are optimistic the NFL will be there as scheduled.

"We're obviously very close to what is going on with this situation and we're feeling pretty optimistic that football will be there," says Greenblatt. "Worst case scenario is we might have a delay of games for a few weeks, in which case we've got a contingency plan that we're in the middle of right now to produce several high-quality event, live event reality-type shows that will fill out that Sunday. We're feeling pretty good about where we're going to be with the NFL."

When asked how NBC can be so confident Greenblatt says, "[Chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics] Dick Ebersol's the master here, I take all my sports cues from him. He's feeling pretty positive."

As to what exactly those reality event shows might entail, Greenblatt is staying mum but he is confident they are good enough to be used anywhere.

"I don't want to go into them yet because there's still a lot of deals being made. If we don't have to use them on Sunday in place of football, there's any number of places they can go," says Greenblatt. "They're designed to be big, attention-getting ideas."

What do you think, NFL fans? As confident as NBC? And will "high quality," "reality-type shows" fill the football void on Sunday nights?