Welcome to Week 3 of CBS Renew/Cancel for the 2026-27 TV season. All Paramount+ peaks listed are as reported in our weekly What's Trending on Streaming column, and is collected directly from Paramount+ daily at 2 pm Eastern Time. All A18-49 and viewership data is sourced from Nielsen, and Attention Scores are sourced from Television Stats. Let us know what you think in the comments and by voting below!
-Cupertino is upgraded from Leans Cancel to Leans Renew.
-CIA is downgraded from Leans Cancel to Likely Cancel.
Cupertino
After being downgraded to Leans Cancel in Week 2, Cupertino is upgraded back to Leans Renew in Week 3. The show is clearly beloved internally by CBS, who is advertising it as a show that is "redefining television" and dedicating the Sunday night rerun slot specifically to it. The Live + Same Day ratings are awful, as was to be expected, but a series-best #8 peak this past week on Paramount+ is a sign of life. CBS will find any excuse they can get to renew Cupertino, so simply cracking the lower end of Paramount+'s Top 10 on a semi-consistent basis may just be enough.
Cupertino's series premiere did pull in an additional 4.31 million viewers between its initial airing and the week that followed, which is competitive to the gain seen by NCIS: New York. While it's unlikely such massive gains continue beyond a series premiere, it is a sign that Cupertino's premiere pulled in a solid level of delayed viewing. Given the time slot, this is something it simply had to do in order to be in renewal contention.
Notably, none of the Attention Scores posted above are the peak Attention Scores Cupertino received in either given week. Those would be the 15.4 and 9.9 it posted in the last two Sundays, when it aired a regularly-scheduled rerun after Marshals and Tracker. With Elsbeth such a low-rated lead-in as it is, one would have to wonder if CBS is open to making Sunday Cupertino's full-time slot, even though the "it's new to you" ratings there are far from stellar too.
CIA
CIA continues to drop like a rock, this week being downgraded to Likely Cancel. While it once seemed likely CBS would develop a CIA spinoff in the very near future, three weeks into the season it looks like one of the most vulnerable shows on CBS's fall schedule. Its retention from FBI at 8 pm is unimpressive at best, and for the second week in a row, it failed to make Paramount+'s top 10. It was one of just three scripted shows on CBS to miss out on the chart. CIA's season premiere also had the smallest post-Live + Same Day lift of any CBS scripted show. Over half a million viewers separated CIA's lift (2.76 million viewers) with the second-smallest lift (3.36 million for the return of NCIS: Origins, which fails to see an upgrade this week as such).
FBI hardly looks any better (third-lowest lift at 3.40 million) and is also very much vulnerable, though there could be a chance they bring it back for a tenth season to try to launch a new spinoff. Going into the season, I would have said FBI was a Likely Cancel and CIA a Likely, if not Certain Renew. At this point, CIA's underperformance and the lackluster streaming performance of brand new FBI episodes will likely have implications on CBS's midseason Monday schedule.
Eternally Yours
CBS's sole new comedy, Eternally Yours, is off to a very rough start. The Live + Same Day retention from Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage isn't terrible, but it's also not quite what you would want to see if you were looking at half-hour breakdowns of a one-hour 8 pm program. Three weeks into the season, it's also the only scripted show on CBS to make zero appearances on Paramount+'s Top 10 chart. That's not to say Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage is lighting up the chart (it's not), or that DMV and Poppa's House were made frequent chart appearances (they hardly ever did), but the latter two got canceled after just one season. Eternally Yours had the fourth-smallest Multiplatform + 7 viewership lift from its Live + Same Day viewership of all CBS scripted shows in Week 1, which is abysmal for a series premiere. The Attention Score drop-offs from Thursday to Friday in the past two weeks are far from a promising signal.
This coming week, Ghosts will preempt Elsbeth at 9 pm for a two-episode Halloween special. When the ratings and the Paramount+ chart peaks come in, I have a feeling much if not all of CBS's current Thursday lineup will be embarrassed. CBS may want to send the aging and expensive Ghosts out to the pasture in favor of the newer and less expensive Eternally Yours, but so far, Eternally Yours has failed to capture Ghosts' audience.
Week 2 Poll Results
In Week 2, you were asked if you think CIA will be renewed or canceled, where you think NCIS: Origins will peak on Paramount+ in Week 3, and which show you personally like better: NCIS: Origins or NCIS: New Orleans.
A slim majority (51%) voted that CIA would be renewed for a third season. The plurality (40%) predicted NCIS: Origins would peak in the #4-#6 range on Paramount+, while 31% correctly predicted it would peak in the #7-#10 range. A majority of poll respondents voted that they personally liked NCIS: Origins better than NCIS: New Orleans by a margin of 53% to 47%.
Week 3 Polls
Interactive Schedule
The below fillable schedule allows you to make and share your own predictions. Select the prediction category at the bottom to change the color scheme, then fill in the box with the show to fill out your predictions. You can then share them in the comments or on social media by selecting Save Screenshot and Download.
| The TV Ratings Guide | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | FBI | CIA | Harlan Coben's Final Twist | ||
| Tues | NCIS | NCIS: New York | NCIS: Origins | ||
| Wed | Survivor | The Amazing Race | |||
| Thurs | Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage | Eternally Yours | Elsbeth | Cupertino | |
| Fri | Sheriff Country | Fire Country | Boston Blue | ||
| Sun | Marshals | Tracker | Encores | ||
Renewed
Certain Renew
Likely Renew
Leans Renew
Leans Cancel
Likely Cancel
Certain Cancel
Canceled