How iTunes saved 'The Office'

While you're having Dwight Schrute prank call your friends, making art projects referencing The Office jokes or messing with co-workers desks like Jim, just think, The Office was nearly cancelled from the NBC schedule. That's according to Verne Gay of Newsday.

Gay says that the show was about to get axed until NBC made a quick deal with iTunes:

And then something providential happened. ABC cut a deal with iTunes' new TV service, and a few hours later, NBC followed. "The Office" was an immediate iTunes hit. While neither Apple nor NBC release numbers (a million total monthly downloads for all TV shows is one estimate), "The Office" now reigns as the "Seinfeld" of iTunes. While it recently ceded the top spot to "Lost," most weeks the great NBC comedy is the single most downloaded program.

"I'm not sure that we'd still have the show on the air" without the iTunes boost, says Angela Bromstead, president of NBC Universal Television Studio, which owns and produces "The Office." "The network had only ordered so many episodes, but when it went on iTunes and really started taking off, that gave us another way to see the true potential other than just Nielsen. It just kind of happened at a great time."

CONTACT: Leave me a Houston or Texas media news tip | COMMENT: Click to leave your thoughts on this post here