After a brief hiatus, the CBS Renew/Cancel is back this week to cover CBS's recent premieres, a trio of unscripted series airing on Wednesdays. Keep reading to see how that trio fared, and which fall show is in a worse position this week despite not even airing a new episode!
Prediction Key:
Week 11 Predictions:
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| Shows' 18-49 demo average and weekly peak performance on Paramount+ are listed in parenthesis |
Hollywood Squares: The two episodes of Hollywood Squares that have aired thus far have been quite far apart in ratings, but together, they do tell a story. It hit just a 0.10 for the Christmas special that aired just days before Christmas, which aired out of its regular time slot, at 10 PM, and behind a Christmas special nobody watched. It then returned in its regular time slot of Wednesdays at 8 PM and drew an OK 0.26 rating. That put it last in its slot among the four major networks, but it is admittedly a tough time slot, with the ABC comedies and The Masked Singer all targeting similar family-friendly, casual viewing audiences as Hollywood Squares, and it still did well enough to only be a few hundredths behind Chicago Med in the hour. CBS is probably not upset about that, given how cheap Hollywood Squares surely is compared to their scripted shows that aren't performing much differently. However, there are plenty of negatives. as evidenced by the poor showing or that 10 PM repeat, it's clearly a show heavily reliant on its lead-in. That's not abnormal for game shows, but it's a troubling sign when you consider that this show will be regularly airing at 10:30 in just about a month, as it airs behind an untested cooking show that it's probably not going to be terribly compatible with. It sunk like a stone for the one 10 PM episode it aired last season, and that was with a 0.7 Survivor lead-in, so things can get ugly fast. CBS is also already treating this show as filler, and it's not a great sign for its future. They randomly aired several episodes on Fridays in early May last year, to near-disastrous results (it sunk to a 0.13 on May 9), then they pulled a planned post-NFL airing in December in favor of a Rob Reiner special, and now it's planned to air one single half-hour at 10:30. They're just tossing this show anywhere with no real regard for how it does, because it's clearly not a priority for them. Its ratings aren't strong enough to inspire them to prioritize it, as even when it performs decently enough, we still have a primetime episode of The Price Is Right managing to build from it at 9 PM, despite Hollywood Squares having the stronger local lead-in (an ideal slot for any game show to air). While its current ratings are acceptable, CBS doesn't really need this show, and its spring ratings will likely sink its chances, as that December special previewed. It starts as a likely cancellation.
Harlan Coben's Final Twist: This is the only new show on CBS's current lineup (which, admittedly, consists of just three shows), and it's easily the weakest. It debuted with just a 0.13 in the key 18-49 demo, and fewer than two million viewers, the lowest debut of CBS's season - which has been filled with disappointing premieres so as it is. Having a popular author host and narrate what is essentially a run-of-the-mill broadcast true crime series wasn't enough to bring in any additional viewers, and Final Twist debuted lower than 20/20 and Dateline's averages and just a single hundredth about 48 Hours, which airs on Saturday night. Final Twists's 0.13 came behind a 0.32 lead-in, meaning it retained just 41% of The Price Is Right at Night. It's not terribly compatible with the game shows they scheduled it behind, and CBS understands that, because they just announced that they're moving it to a new time slot: Tuesdays at 8. A schedule they had in place for seven months has been altered just one week into its existence, though repeats will continue to air Wednesdays at 10 regardless. CBS is giving it the best chance they can to succeed, and the NCIS show are theoretically more compatible with it than light game shows. That's why I can't give it too harsh of a prediction from the start, as they would've just left the schedule alone if they didn't care about the show or its ratings. Still, you can only be so positive about a 0.13, especially when this is the sort of show that barely gains anything in delayed viewing (and it indeed failed to chart at all on Paramount+ this week). It starts as a leans cancellation prediction, but it'll need to strongly over perform on Tuesdays to get into the green, and I have my doubts that it'll be able to do so.
The Price is Right at Night: Easily the highlight of CBS's week is The Price is Right at Night, one of the cheapest possible shows they could air. This is merely an extra primetime episode of daytime classic The Price is Right, likely produced at a fraction of the cost of even the other filler programs on the network. Despite that, it was CBS's top show during this first (barren) week of 2026, drawing a 0.32 in the demo and growing from its Hollywood Squares lead-in. This is excellent filler for CBS, and it's a reliable performer, even against strong competition. This isn't the sort of show to get formal renewal announcements or even have traditional "seasons," and they can bring it back and throw it anywhere they need to fill space. It seems very likely to continue to fill some slot on CBS's schedule next year - probably back on Wednesdays in the winter as a bridge for Survivor. It's a likely renewal.
NCIS: Sydney: It hasn't aired in a while, and it won't are for a while yet, but things continue to look worse for NCIS: Sydney. After just a week, they've pulled reruns of the show from Tuesday nights in order to make room for Harlan Coben's Final Twist to move to 8 PM. It's one of the very few CBS series not being repeated anywhere in January - fellow likely cancellation Watson being the other. CBS could've easily found a place for it if they cared, seeing how many repeats they're airing of DMV and NCIS: Origins (though those airings may well be makegoods to make up for their poor L+SD showings in the fall). Still, it's a terrible sign for this show that even Harlan Coben's Final Twist is being treated better and repeated more often than it. They don't seem to care about it at all, its ratings are abysmal, and all signs point to it being completely done after this season.
| The TV Ratings Guide | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | The Neighborhood | DMV | FBI | Watson | |
| Tues | NCIS | NCIS: Origins | NCIS: Sydney | ||
| Wed | Hollywood Squares | The Price Is Right At Night | Harlan Coben's Final Twist | ||
| Thurs | Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage | Ghosts | Matlock | Elsbeth | |
| Fri | Sheriff Country | Fire Country | Boston Blue | ||
| Sun | Tracker | The Road | Encores | ||
What do you think of these predictions? What are your predictions? Let us know in the comments and make sure to vote in the poll below!
