NBC has canceled seven shows so far in 2026, cutting loose a mix of scripted dramas, a one-season comedy and daytime staples as the 2025-2026 network season winds down. Among the shows not returning are Brilliant Minds, Law & Order: Organized Crime, Stumble, The Kelly Clarkson Show, Karamo, Access Hollywood and The Steve Wilkos Show.
That is the reason people are searching now: the network’s latest round of cancellations touches more than one corner of its schedule, from prime-time drama to daytime talk. For viewers tracking nbc canceled shows 2026, the list has grown large enough to show a broad programming shift rather than a single isolated decision.
One of the sharpest examples is Brilliant Minds, which drew positive attention from some critics but was still NBC’s lowest-rated drama series on the linear TV lineup. The series ran for two seasons, and Brian Altemus said on Instagram that he would miss working with the people on the production, including the hundreds of others behind the scenes. DeMane Davis called the show her family for two seasons and said the joy of working with that group was something she would carry with her daily.
The cancellations also reach beyond scripted television. NBC will not return The Kelly Clarkson Show and Karamo will not come back for a sixth season, while NBCUniversal said it will no longer produce any first-run syndicated TV programming. That decision also ends its role with Access Hollywood and The Steve Wilkos Show, a run that began in 2007 and lasted 19 seasons for Wilkos’ program.
Frances Berwick said NBCUniversal is making changes to its first-run syndication division to better align with the programming preferences of local stations. That explanation fits the corporate logic, but it still leaves an industry-wide hole: NBCUniversal is stepping out of a long-running distribution lane just as it cuts back on network series, and there is no public answer yet on whether any of the canceled shows will turn up elsewhere.
For now, the count stands at seven NBC cancellations in 2026, and the pattern is clear enough. NBC is trimming across formats while NBCUniversal retreats from first-run syndication, which means the next question is not whether more titles will be affected, but how much of this schedule will survive in another home.
