If Peacock’s The Paper makes you nostalgic for the broadcast golden age of its predecessor The Office, you’re in luck. On Thursday (traditionally a great day for NBC must-watch TV), it was announced the streaming original series will enjoy a broadcast window, airing weekly on NBC this fall beginning November 10, per Deadline. It’ll air after the network’s other mockumentary comedy, St. Denis Medical. 

The Paper‘s broadcast run was floated back in June, as NBC had some gaps in its fall schedule to fill up. (The new cheerleading comedy Stumble will air on Friday nights, while Tina Fey’s new sitcom The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins is being held until midseason.) In her B+ review of the show, Saloni Gajjar writes, “A few growing pains and the inevitable pressure to live up to a certain hype aside, The Paper‘s energy feels infectious thanks to sharp performances, writing, and editing. Co-creators [Greg] Daniels and Michael Koman (Nathan For You) give a gentler spin on a familiar format instead of simply copying and pasting The Office‘s prickly humor.” Reflecting on his return to the NBC fold, Daniels himself told The A.V. Club, “It’s true that you write what you can relate to. The idea of Ned trying to restore the glory of a newspaper that was great earlier, and trying to do a spin-off of a show that everybody loved, there’s a certain parallel there that I could relate to.”

Indeed, the fervent fandom The Office cultivated is part of why The Paper is now getting its own linear window. “Knowing how much The Office was beloved by a broadcast audience when it aired on NBC, we wanted to give The Paper a similar opportunity to connect,” NBCU Entertainment scripted series chief Lisa Katz told Vulture. According to the outlet, NBCU estimates that just four percent of regular NBC viewers also regularly stream shows on Peacock, so the linear window will reach an entirely new audience. On the flip side, most new sign-ups for streaming a particular show happen within the first two months of a show’s drop, a period which will be over by the time The Paper airs in November. But broadcast viewers who enjoy The Paper may then be tempted to sign up for Peacock to have first, early access to the binge-drop of the second season, which has already been announced.

It’s an interesting balance being struck between the two businesses, but networks are slowly figuring out how to make broadcast work for the streamers and vice versa. Broadcast windows for streaming series has been growing as a trend since CBS aired episodes of Yellowstone to fill its empty schedule during the 2023 Hollywood strikes. The Bear got a first-season marathon on FX in 2024 and ABC has aired multiple seasons of Hulu’s Only Murders In The Building plus its recent hit Paradise. The Office itself is an example of the symbiotic relationship between broadcast and streaming. Nielsen ratings indicate audiences prefer longer shows with more seasons and episodes, and The Office exploded to even greater popularity on Netflix (where it began streaming while still airing on NBC), which led NBCUniversal to seek a spin-off from Greg Daniels… which became The Paper. And so the ouroboros of television continues!

The Paper’s Greg Daniels: “For season one, the show needed to stand on its own feet”The Paper bosses Greg Daniels and Michael Koman were talked into a binge release