Solid night-opening anchors like Dancing With the Stars and Grey's Anatomy remain where they've long been, with ABC using them to launch new dramas; a returning series with a small but loyal fanbase, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., will move to Tuesdays at 10 p.m., a historically difficult time slot for ABC; and given the network's success with comedy, they've added a third night of sitcoms to the schedule.

"We are extremely proud of what we like to call our 'ABC funny' brand. We think we have a very distinctive brand of family comedies that are working very well," Dungey said during a conference call with reporters Tuesday morning. "The development we had this year came in very, very strong and once we looked at that development in combination with the comedies we already brought back, it really did seem to make sense to open up another night of comedy."

This fall, two-hour comedy blocks will air on both Tuesday and Wednesdays nights, with freshman series American Housewife joining The Middle, Fresh Off the Boat, and The Real O'Neals on Tuesdays and Speechless debuting alongside The Goldbergs, Modern Family, and Black-ish on Wednesdays.

Over on the drama side, it was revealed that Scandal will be held until midseason — likely due to star Kerry Washington's pregnancy, thereby saving fans from enduring another round of seeing all the crazy ways the show attempts to hide her baby bump. But instead of subbing another Shondaland show into that highly touted TGIT programming block on Thursday nights (like sophomore series The Catch or the new drama Still Star-Crossed), a new drama from executive producer Josh Berman and co–executive producer Allie Hagan, Notorious, will get that choice slot.