Below is the table for Week 8 of CBS Renew/Cancel, followed by an analysis. Let us know what you think by voting in the poll and leaving a comment!
Big Brother
Big Brother just concluded its 25th season on CBS. It typically only airs in the summer, with Celebrity Big Brother sometimes popping up on the schedule for a few weeks in the winter. With the WGA and SAG-AFRTRA strikes, CBS relied on Big Brother three nights a week into November. Ratings varied depending on time slot, but overall this was yet another strong season ratings-wise for Big Brother. The unscripted series is an inexpensive way for CBS to score high ratings multiple nights a week. Now that Season 25 has concluded, they’ve announced Big Brother Reindeer Games, a six-episode holiday-themed miniseries to air in December.
At this point, Big Brother Season 26 is all but a guarantee. It will be sorely missed on CBS’s schedule, which is about to add the likes of reruns of Young Sheldon and an NCIS spinoff originally meant only to be viewed in Oceania. It finishes Season 25 in the Certain Renew category.
NCIS: Sydney and the NCIS FranchiseWhen NCIS: Los Angeles was announced to be ending with its current season, it looked like the end may have been in sight for the NCIS franchise. They already canceled NCIS: New Orleans in 2021, and newcomer NCIS: Hawai’i has underwhelmed even if it’s managing renewals. Even NCIS itself has been declining in recent years, particularly since it moved to Mondays. It wasn’t far-fetched to see a scenario where NCIS: Hawai’i would be canceled shortly after hitting syndication, with expenses and declining ratings leading to the end of the mother show around the same time. However, CBS’s reliance on the NCIS franchise throughout the strikes is a testament to their lasting support of the franchise; or at least, their willingness to recognize its strong rerun value.
NCIS: Sydney is arguably the most flashy program on CBS’s fall schedule. If prospective viewers treat it like any other NCIS series, it could manage passable ratings — a win for CBS after SEAL Team flopped massively this week. However, if people don’t have an interest in watching a new NCIS series that takes place overseas, CBS could be in some big trouble. They’ve given it the Tuesdays at 8pm time slot, meaning they trust it to do good enough to lead off the night.
Something that stands out is the relative lack of NCIS: Hawai’i on CBS’s NCIS-heavy schedule. CBS opted to rerun NCIS in NCIS: Hawai’i’s Mondays at 10pm time slot, and tripled up on NCIS reruns on Monday instead of giving an hour to NCIS: Hawai’i. This reinforces the idea that NCIS: Hawai’i is sticking around mostly just to get a syndication deal, and doesn’t provide all that much value on CBS’s schedule.
Let’s Make A Deal Primetime and Raid The Cage
In the right time slot, Let’s Make A Deal Primetime can provide solid ratings for an incredibly low price. Fridays at 8pm is evidently not that time slot. It will be moving to Mondays at 9pm starting November 20, taking over for LoterÃa Loca. The Price Is Right At Night will stay put at 8pm, the time slot LoterÃa Loca was originally supposed to move to. Leading off Fridays will be various programming including The Price Is Right At Night itself and a special of Greatest At Home Videos. It’s not the ideal schedule.
The point is, CBS is making an effort to raise Let’s Make A Deal Primetime’s abysmal ratings while doing nothing about the equally abysmal ratings seen by Raid The Cage. They’ve never seemed to prioritize Raid The Cage, and the fact it can’t get better scheduling even as holes pop up on the Sunday-Thursday schedule make it clear they don’t have grand plans for it in the future. It stays as Leans Cancel for now instead of being downgraded, if only for the chance CBS decides to renew it for the summer. Let’s Make A Deal Primetime will stay in Leans Renew heading into its move to Mondays.
Share this
