CSI: Cyber
Network: CBS
Time Slot: Sunday at 10
Competition: NFL Football, Quantico
Lead-in: The Good Wife
Lead-out: None
CSI: Cyber was reportedly only renewed due to significant overseas syndication potential. This is all due to the CSI name—in other words, if the show was created and produced by different people and simply called Cyber, it probably would not have been renewed. And if it was not produced by CBS, it definately wouldn't have been renewed. Just look at what happened to Stalker. But alas, CBS decided to give this big-named show a short first season after Criminal Minds, where its mothership show rated in the high 1s just recently in 2013-2014. However, Cyber only managed lower 1s. Just like CSI was moved into the Sunday at 10 time slot in 2014-2015, CSI:Cyber is going there in the fall. CSI collapsed, hitting low 1s throughout most of its run, and I expect CSI:Cyber to do whatever collapsing it has left in the time slot as well.
The Sunday at 10 time slot in the fall is arguably the worst CBS has to offer. By then, the post-football afternoon game bump has gone away, and can actually be argued to be a negative force. This is because many times, the football game will run over into prime time. CSI's time slot last fall might as well have been 10:30pm, because football overruns rarely allowed it to start earlier. Sometimes, football would run so late that CSI would have to be unexpectedly preempted, with the other shows sliding back as far as an hour. One time they were forced to air CSI for scheduling reasons, and as a result aired it at 11pm (like anyone would stay up at 11pm on a Sunday to watch a procedural show live).
Against the predictions of almost everyone out there, CBS renewed CSI:Cyber. They may actually decide to run this one out to syndication, since it appears their new strategy is to get as many of their in-house productions to syndication as humanely possible and in as little time as humanely possible. This show may even venture into the American Odyssey or Battle Creek numbers.
This season CSI premiered to just a 1.3 A18-49 rating (and 9.36 million viewers!), after a 1.9 A18-49 finale in its previous season (and strangely just a small increase in viewers). CSI:Cyber finished its season with a two-hour finale. Both segments hit a 1.2 A18-49 rating, following a 2.3 from Survivor.
Range: 0.7-1.5
Prediction: 0.9
CSI
Network: CBS
Time Slot: Sunday at 9
Competition: NFL Football, Family Guy, The Last Man On Earth, Blood & Oil, Quantico
Lead-in: 60 Minutes
Lead-out: None
Now for CSI. Looking at its past season's numbers, we can't expect much for CSI's series finale. However, regardless of its A18-49 rating, CSI did have a remarkably great run, even having three spinoffs. I see it having a very high viewership though—people who watched it in its earlier seasons who return for the finale are most likely no longer in the 18-49 age demographic. I can genuinely see at least 12 million people tuning in, but I'm not getting my hopes up for its demo rating (as if it matters anymore anyway). Also, I don't think its season/series premiere competition will make much of a dent, considering the lack of an overlapping audience and the event-watch it must be for fans.
Range: 1.0-2.5
Prediction: 1.8