Law & Order: SVU Season 26 likely coming to NBC in fall 2024

NBC brought some exciting news. The majority of the Dick Wolf programming on the network is coming back for another season. That includes Law & Order: SVU, coming back for a historic 26th season.

Now eyes are on when the show will be back on the air. We know that the current season is likely to wrap in May 2024. That’s the usual time for finales for the main networks, and this year probably won’t be much different now that most shows are back.

The problem is Law & Order: SVU Season 25 premiered in January 2024. Is there a chance that we’ll have to wait until January 2025 for the next season? We don’t think so.

Law & Order: SVU Season 26 is likely to premiere in September 2024

NBC is still to confirm the fall schedule for the 2024–2025 season, but we’re expecting it to look normal. The only reason Law & Order: SVU and other shows were pushed to the midseason this year is because of the strike action during the summer. None of the shows were ready for a fall start.

This shouldn’t be the case this year. And it doesn’t make sense for NBC to delay the show to the midseason. Law & Order: SVU is ranked joint second in the demo with Chicago Med and third in the total audience. Why would NBC want to delay one of the powerhouses on the network?

We’ll also likely see it return on Thursdays at 9/8c. While it could make more sense to have SVU at 8 p.m. since it is performing better than Law & Order, the content matter makes more sense for the later timeslot.

There is a chance that the episode count will be a little shorter than the usual 22 episodes. It won’t be as short as this season, which is coming in at 13 episodes, but it could be around 18 to 20 episodes instead of 22. This was the original plan for Season 25 due to cost-cutting needs at NBC.

Law & Order: SVU Season 25 is currently airing on Thursdays at 9/8c on NBC.