Below is the table for Week 15 of CBS Renew/Cancel, featuring every scripted show that has premiered so far in the 2022-23 TV season. The following change has been made from the Week 14 table:
-Ghosts moves from Certain Renew to Renewed
The renewal of Ghosts for a third season came as no surprise, as it spent all but the preseason edition of CBS Renew/Cancel as the show most confidently predicted to be renewed. When it comes to comedy, Ghosts now joins Young Sheldon in the Renewed column, while the fates of The Neighborhood and Bob Hearts Abishola are still to be announced. In terms of looking at CBS’s current Thursday night lineup, the Ghosts renewal is a no-brainer on a night where the two drama hours are two of the lowest-rated on the network.
Ghosts is currently the highest-rated sitcom on television to air at the bottom of an hour. Perhaps CBS wants to stay safe and keep the 8pm hour of Young Sheldon and Ghosts as is next season, especially if they don’t find it worthwhile to expand comedy hours. However, this season’s performance so far proves Ghosts can likely provide a nice lead-in for a new fall sitcom should CBS choose to make such a scheduling move. While How We Roll flopped behind Ghosts in spring 2022, it was a relatively little-promoted show.
NCIS, NCIS: Hawai’i, and NCIS: Los Angeles
CBS kicked off the new year with a crossover of all three NCIS shows on a Monday night. It propelled NCIS to a 0.56 A18-49 Live + Same Day rating, but helped out the spinoffs much more; Hawai’i hit a 0.53 at 9pm, and Los Angeles a 0.50 at 10pm. Generally speaking the crossover was a successful one-time stunt, albeit I had personally assumed NCIS’s ratings potential for such an event to be higher. NCIS was actually out-rated by FBI, Young Sheldon, Ghosts, and The Price Is Right At Night in the 8pm hour this week, only beating East New York and S.W.A.T. There just doesn’t seem to be the same appetite for the NCIS franchise that there once was. I am sticking with the theory that CBS will renew NCIS but cancel one of the spinoffs by the end of this season, and that it’s more likely to be Los Angeles than Hawai’i. After all, NCIS: Hawai’i can join the other NCIS shows in syndication in two more seasons if CBS is patient with it.
One would have to wonder what NCIS: Los Angeles would have done at 10pm had it not been the final hour of the crossover, and if it didn’t have another NCIS show as a lead-in. Just a night earlier, it posted a 0.37 out of East New York’s 0.52. This is incredibly disappointing for NCIS: Los Angeles, as it only rose 0.01 ratings points from its previous episode despite getting to air earlier in the night (that episode received a 0.36 out of East New York’s 0.38). NCIS: Los Angeles remains Tilts Cancel for now as it is hard to hold that crossover rating against it, but a downgrade to Leans Cancel could very well be in its future.