Bill Cosby returns to NBC

NBC is developing a new sitcom starring comedy legend Bill Cosby – more than 20 years after the entertainer’s best-known work, The Cosby Show, ended its run on the US network.

The deal brings the 76-year-old comedian together with former Cosby Show producer Tom Werner for a new family comedy in which Cosby will star.

The multiple-Emmy award winner will play the patriarch of a multi-generational family, as he did for The Cosby Show, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1992.

The news comes two months after Cosby revealed that he was interested in returning to TV for another family show.

Last July, US cable network Comedy Central teamed up with the comedian for a one-off TV special titled Far From Finished.

Prior to that, Cosby’s last special came in 1983 with Bill Cosby, Himself, a show which laid the foundations for The Cosby Show.

In related news, NBC has renewed long-running daytime soap Days of Our Lives through to 2016. This will bring the soap past its 50th anniversary in November 2015.