NEW YORK -- In the first day of this year's already unusual broadcast television upfront week, NBC tried to reinvent the process while word leaked out about its competitors' high-profile new shows.
CBS led the way Monday by announcing a flurry of pickups that included a quartet of new dramatic series and a pair of new comedies. The shows are:
* "The Mentalist," a drama about a man with psychic abilities who works as an independent contractor for the police.
* "The Ex List," a drama based on an Israeli show about a woman who tracks down her ex-boyfriends after a psychic tells her that she has already met the man she is going to marry.
* "Elemental," formerly titled "Eleventh Hour," a drama about a professor who works as an advisor to a government scientific agency.
* "Harper's Island," a drama about a group of friends who meet on an island off Seattle for a destination wedding.
* "Worst Week," a single-camera romantic comedy about a couple's nightmarish week before their wedding.
* "Project Gary," a comedy created by Ed Yeager of "Reba" about a recently divorced father coming to terms with his kids, ex-wife and new dating life.
NBC effectively ceded its usual time in the spotlight Monday since it had already laid out a 65-week schedule in advertiser presentations last month. Its competitors are expected to follow suit this week with their own year-round schedule announcements, hoping to get buyers on board early.
Rather than the usual high-kicking presentation at Radio City Music Hall, or a news conference featuring bullish executives touting the strength of their fall schedule, NBC instead opened by confirming a move still a year away: the appointment of comedian Jimmy Fallon as Conan O'Brien's successor on its "Late Night" show.
With rain-drenched Manhattan as a backdrop, the network officially delivered the news of Fallon's selection atop 30 Rockefeller Center by showing a "Saturday Night Live" montage of Fallon impersonations that featured Pat O'Brien, Larry King and Jerry Seinfeld.
"It's a comedian's dream to get this job, to work with writers and try to be funny every night," Fallon said. "I'm hoping to make it the best show -- a great show for everyone to choose me to fall asleep during."
The pick of the "Saturday Night Live" alum was hardly a surprise -- since last summer, the industry has buzzed with reports that Fallon would take over the 12:35 a.m. show in mid-2009, when O'Brien inherits "The Tonight Show" from Jay Leno.
