Below are the predictions for Week 6 of CBS Renew/Cancel, followed by an analysis. At the bottom is a poll as well as the interactive schedule, where you can make your own predictions. Let us know what you think by leaving a comment!
Key
Week 6 Predictions
Blue Bloods
Blue Bloods is about to end its 14-season run, with nearly all of its 293 episodes airing in the Fridays at 10 pm time slot. This is a time slot that both ABC and NBC have long abandoned in the scripted department, opting instead to air newsmagazines like 20/20 and Dateline NBC. Perhaps even more unprecedented than Blue Bloods long run in this time slot is the fact that it hasn’t spawned any spinoffs. There are 13 scripted shows on CBS’s fall schedule that are either part of an IP or about to spawn one themselves. Blue Bloods is among the three exceptions. While it’s slipped in the A18-49 demo recently, Blue Bloods is still among CBS’s most-watched shows on multi-platform, and has consistently been one of the most-watched shows on television.
Now that Blue Bloods is ending, there’s finally chatter of creating a spin-off, likely for Paramount+. However, no spin-off is in active development. It’s rather surprising news given Blue Bloods’ overall success, on linear, streaming, and in syndication. Perhaps this ends up like a Criminal Minds: Evolution, where some form of the show returns a couple years from now on Paramount+. Arguably, a Blue Bloods IP expansion should be a matter of when, not if. The only question now is if CBS and Paramount+’s upcoming owner, Skydance Media, agrees.
Fire Country
Now in its third season, Fire Country has been a key part of CBS’s Friday lineup since it premiered in fall 2022. Dating back to summer 2023, CBS has hinted at expanding Fire Country into a franchise. This will start to come to fruition with the scheduled premiere of spinoff Sheriff Country next fall. It will possibly continue with a second spinoff, the foundation of which was just introduced on Fire Country. With Blue Bloods ending in December and S.W.A.T. having already bounced back from cancelation twice, it’s been presumed CBS is eyeing Fridays for the new franchise.
But is being tied down to Fridays really what Fire Country deserves, and is it where a spinoff would have the best chance at a proper launch? This is something CBS may consider when making renewal and cancelation decisions this season. In a landscape where the other broadcast networks are cutting back on scripted programming, choosing Friday nights for a new franchise is an unorthodox approach.
Should CBS choose to keep Fire Country on Fridays, it will very likely continue to do just fine on the schedule and post an impressive streaming performance over the weekend. However, one has to wonder if there’s any untapped potential in this series that can be unlocked with a time slot change. Of course, Fire Country has not technically been renewed for a fourth season yet, but it’s considered to be all but a formality at this point.
The other question is if any spinoff past Sheriff Country will even air on CBS. It’s been well acknowledged that an IP expansion is being considered for both CBS and Paramount+, and the latest effort to spin off Fire Country could very well be for the latter. Of course, that’s if it’s ordered at all — the episode following the introduction of a new surfer spinoff character tumbled to a series low paltry 0.24 in the L+SD A18-49 demo. With Fire Country performing strongly on Paramount+, it’s certainly an idea worth exploring.
The Neighborhood
Arguably the most controversial prediction here is The Neighborhood’s Likely Cancel prediction. I do believe that CBS will announce the show’s final season well in advance, rather than suddenly cancel it at the end of the season, and it could easily get upgraded if that announcement does not happen in the coming months. However, there are signs brewing that The Neighborhood could very well be vulnerable this season.
The Neighborhood has two out-of-time slot reruns scheduled: the first, tomorrow at 10 pm, and the second, Sunday, December 8 at 10:30 pm. By December 8, The Neighborhood will have been rerun three times while airing just six new episodes. On the surface level, this makes sense given The Neighborhood is a solid player in linear ratings and is rerun consistently in syndication. But when you look more closely, you’ll notice an out-of-time slot rerun may not a vote of confidence after all.
Last season, CBS rerun So Help Me Todd out-of-time slot six times, more than any other show on their schedule. They would go on to cancel it at the end of the season. Tied for second with five out-of-time slot reruns each were Tracker, Fire Country, and NCIS: Hawai’i. It should be noted that Tracker was rerun a few times for exposure right after its premiere, and Fire Country’s reruns were contained to just a single Saturday night when honing in on the spring 2024 scripted season. NCIS: Hawai’i, meanwhile, was rerun more consistently throughout the spring and joined So Help Me Todd in cancelation. Same goes for CSI: Vegas, right behind with four reruns. The same was very nearly said for The Equalizer, also with four reruns. In the cases of the canceled shows, these were almost certainly done for the purposes of make goods; in other words, delivering advertisers what promised them, but failed to provide, during the original airings. If CBS keeps repeating The Neighborhood in odd time slots, the end may be closer than the linear ratings suggest.
That’s not to say The Neighborhood is finished as an IP. A spinoff, the Tracy Morgan-starring Crutch, has been ordered to series, and is slated to premiere on Paramount+. With comedy a dying breed on Paramount+, Crutch could be a relatively easy sell as it’s attached to an existing IP — even if The Neighborhood is no longer producing new episodes.
NCIS
With NCIS: Origins, an astounding six NCIS series have now aired on CBS. Like with The Neighborhood and possibly Fire Country, the NCIS IP is soon expanding to Paramount+ with the launch of NCIS: Tony & Ziva. Again, this makes sense — NCIS does well on Paramount+, and even canceled spinoffs like NCIS: New Orleans and NCIS: Hawai’i maintain a streaming presence. It’s still notable that, for the first time ever, there is going to be a US-based NCIS series with no plans to air on CBS. Keep in mind both Tony and Ziva are previous fan-favorite characters from NCIS, back when the show rated even higher than it does today (multi-platform included). It begs the question of the future of the NCIS franchise on broadcast. With Origins starting to underperform and Hawai’i canceled due to production expenses, CBS now turns to the Friday-bound NCIS: Sydney, an Australian original which only started airing on CBS due to the strikes. If NCIS: Tony & Ziva works for Paramount+ and NCIS: Origins continues its descent, one will have to wonder if the future of the franchise is on streaming more so than broadcast.
Elsbeth
Whereas so many of CBS’s most popular IPs are potentially expanding to Paramount+, Elsbeth is a case of the opposite. Elsbeth is a spinoff of Paramount+’s The Good Fight, which aired for six seasons and was one of the first original series to air on what was then CBS All-Access. That in turn was a spinoff of CBS’s The Good Wife. Ironically, Elsbeth is not very popular on CBS but makes up for it in multi-platform viewing, making one wonder if it should have just been a Paramount+ original from the start. However, Paramount+ has cut back on original series lately, and Elsbeth is arguably getting more attention as a CBS show than it would have as a Paramount+ original.
The question now becomes, could CBS look at Elsbeth and decide to spin off another Paramount+ original for the linear network? Arguably there are very few options. The Frasier reboot premiere flopped on CBS, as did reruns of Star Trek: Discovery and even SEAL Team. Had the latter not happened, I would not have been shocked to find a SEAL Team spinoff land on CBS. In reality, the shift from CBS to Paramount+ is looking much more likely than the other way around. There is one other possibility though — with CBS and Paramount+ soon to be under new ownership, don’t rule out the Warner Bros. Discovery approach where an upcoming Paramount+ original ends up airing on CBS instead.
Poll
Interactive Schedule
To make your own predictions, you can use the interactive schedule any time below. Click on the prediction you would like to make, then tap on the show. For example, if you agree with me that Ghosts is a Certain Renewal, tap on the green ‘Certain’, then tap on Ghosts and it will fill in the time slot accordingly. If you would like to share, you can do this by selecting ‘Save Screenshot’ and ‘Download’. Then drag and drop the image to the comments, or save it to your device and upload it to the comments.
| The TV Ratings Guide | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | The Neighborhood | Poppa’s House | NCIS | NCIS: Origins | |
| Tues | FBI | FBI: International | FBI: Most Wanted | ||
| Wed | Survivor | The Summit | |||
| Thurs | Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage | Ghosts | Matlock | Elsbeth | |
| Fri | S.W.A.T. | Fire Country | Blue Bloods | ||
| Sun | Tracker | The Equalizer | Encores | ||
Renewed
Certain Renew
Likely Renew
Leans Renew
Tilts Renew
Tilts Cancel
Leans Cancel
Likely Cancel
Certain Cancel
Canceled