As expected, a second run of Max’s (soon to once again be “HBO Max’s”) smash freshman medical series “The Pitt” will make its way to TNT this fall, exposing the drama to linear viewers who perhaps haven’t caught it quite yet on streaming.
The TNT run of “The Pitt” is meant to serve as a bit of a snack for viewers in preparation for Season 2 of the series. Channing Dungey, chairman and CEO of the Warner Bros. Television Group and US Networks, announced the news on Wednesday during her portion of the Warner Bros. Discovery 2025 upfronts — along with the rest of her early plans for the networks, which she added to her oversight in January.
Dungey and her team aren’t yet ready to share how they plan to roll out the 15 episodes of “The Pitt” on TV (remember, it’s produced in a real-time format like “24”), but she does say she wants to make sure it gets an “eventized”-level launch.
“When we put Max programming on the T-nets, we want to make sure that we’re telling the audience, ‘this is something special, you want to tune in for this,’” she said. “And so we want to make sure that the schedule reflects that kind of event feel, and that we can make it feel consistent. And so people will hopefully tune in, and we can build a real cadence around it.”
News of “The Pitt” on TNT isn’t a complete surprise; HBO Max boss Casey Bloys referenced it recently in an interview he did with Vulture. But this is still the first time it’s been officially announced that the show will indeed make its way to its linear WBD sibling.
It’s also not the first HBO Max show to get a run on the Turner nets, which has become a bit more common. HBO’s “True Detective: North Country” recently ran on TNT, while the first season of “Hacks” aired on TBS. Coming up, the first season of “Peacemaker” is also expected to run on TNT ahead of its Season 2 launch.
“Those were really good experiments for us,” Dungey said. “We’re learning a little bit about how to platform the shows, how to make them feel more like an event. These have been some very good learnings for us as we go towards The Pitt launch in Q4 this year. Doing things like that, it’s great for us, and it also is helping Max as well. If it drives viewers to Max for the new season, that’s a win/win.”
This is a unique case where, Dungey serves as the seller of “The Pitt” as the head of Warner Bros. TV. And now, as head of TNT, she’s also the acquirer of the show’s second run.
The series has been a critical success, and a breakout hit for Max as it gave the streamer a 15-episode medical juggernaut. Noah Wyle, Tracey Ifeachor, Patrick Ball, Katherine LaNasa, Supriya Ganesh, Fiona Dourif, Taylor Dearden, Isa Briones, Gerran Howell and Shabana Azeez star. Each episode follows Wyle’s character, Dr. Robby, during his 15-hour shift as the chief attendant in a Pittsburgh hospital emergency room.
R. Scott Gemmill created the series and serves as an executive producer. Wyle is also an executive producer along with John Wells and Erin Jontow of John Wells Productions, Michael Hissrich and Simran Baidwan. Warner Bros. Television, where John Wells Productions is under an overall deal, is the studio.
