NBC Brings Back Bill Cosby For New Family Comedy As Network Faces Challenges With Sitcom Ratings

Bill Cosby will return to NBC after almost 20 years for a new family-oriented sitcom and the comic legend will team up with former “The Cosby Show” producer Tom Werner, according to reports.

The network announced on Wednesday that Cosby will return for a new half-hour comedy show. And, according to the Hollywood Reporter, 76-year-old Cosby will play the “patriarch of a multigenerational family,” which closely resembles what he did on “The Cosby Show” in the 1980s.

Cosby reportedly said that the family comedy “would [satisfy] the people who have come to me in public places and said, ‘Can’t you put something on that I can watch?’”

The news of Cosby’s return comes months after he told Yahoo TV: “I want to be able to deliver a wonderful show to [a] network,” and added that the reason to do so was “because there is a viewership out there that wants to see comedy, and warmth, and love, and surprise, and cleverness, without going into the party attitude.”

“They would like to see a married couple that acts like they love each other, warts and all, children who respect the parenting, and the comedy of people who make mistake. Warmth and forgiveness.”

Cosby went on: “So I hope to get that opportunity, and I will deliver the best of Cosby, and that will be a series, I assume, that we could get enough people week after week after week to tune in to, to come along with us.”

NBC’s comedy block has “been a real challenge,” Robert Greenblatt, the network’s entertainment chairman told the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour on Sunday.