I’ve looked at the chances of this season’s shows being cancelled/renewed. I’ve looked at some of the pilots. I’ve discussed at length what I might do if I were in charge of scheduling ABC. Now it’s time to take a look at CBS.
I touched a bit on CBS’s shaky future when looking at the pilots. They’ve had a lot of shows this season that are hits. All of them, pretty much are hits. CBS regularly dominates in total viewers, pulling in more viewers than the other networks combined. Thing is, the audience skews old. For better or worse, for whatever reason, the key demographic advertisers care about when it comes to broadcast television is the 18-49 demographic. The higher the 18-49 rating, the more they’re willing to shell out for a commercial slot. CBS may dominate in total viewers regularly (they’ve won something like 12 of the last 13 TV seasons in total viewers), but their shows skew old, and that old skew is not ‘youthening’ up (down?) anytime soon.
There’s the stereotype about CBS programming, its dramas are all spin-offs of some other crime/murderporn show, and its comedies are laugh-track, stale-joke shows. No matter the perception, for a long time, that worked. By simple virtue of having the most viewers, they naturally also had the most 18-49 viewers. That is becoming less and less the case every season. This season has seen many CBS stalwarts come down to Earth. The latest Big Bang Theory season finale finished down 20% from last year. The latest episode of NCIS pulled in 14M viewers compared to The Voice’s 9M. Totally got it beat, right? Not in the all-important 18-49 demo, they tied at 2.0. This is the demo that determines how financially-valuable a show is. And right now its right in line with a show pulling in 60% less total viewers. This is a show that pulled in 3’s and 4’s, that started out the season with a 2.9. Here’s the thing, for a show in its 12th season, that is really quite good, especially in today’s TV landscape. But NCIS is indicative of many of CBS’s shows, they’re in their umpteenth season, on a slow descent in the ratings, still pulling in respectable numbers, but CBS hasn’t really hit it big with any of its new shows in recent years. While ABC has a good mix of old, middle-aged, and young shows, CBS’s best-performing shows are shows it launched 5+ years ago and its newer shows have been middling at best.
These shows have life in them yet, but CBS is a 2nd place network. ABC (3rd) is nipping at its heels. CBS may remain in 2nd for seasons to come due to FOX & NBC’s struggles, but really, they want to be 1st and to do that they need to launch 18-49 hits, without immediately alienating their current audience or they’ll end up the network version of JC Penny.
Sunday
Current Schedule:60 Minutes/Madam Secretary/The Good Wife/Battle Creek
Sunday is a fixer-upper. Madam Secretary is another prime example of the double-edge sword of CBS programming, it pulls in perfectly fine ratings in total viewership, but man oh man does this show skew old. It started off decently with a 2.0 rating (far from spectacular given how hard CBS was pushing this show) ended with a 1.0 for its last two episodes of the season. That. is. miserable. Multiple comedies have been cancelled recently pulling in ratings a little higher than a 1.0 and a) they’re on networks worse off than CBS & b) comedies are less expensive to produce than hour-long dramas. CBS inexplicably renewed it in a wave of freshmen renewals earlier in the season, and boy they must be kicking themselves for it.
All this is to say, they probably can’t stop the bleeding, but they need stave it off. When Fox renewed Glee for 2 seasons and then saw its ratings plummet, they cut the episode order for its last season and shipped it off to Fridays.
Do that. Order 13 episodes and push it elsewhere. Sundays & Thursdays are the most valuable nights and CBS’s Sunday shows have been 3rd/4th-place finishers in the Spring.
60 Minutes usually drops off in Spring, but when it has football in front it can pull in ratings. There’s bigger problems then messing with a show that’s been in its time slot since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. CBS moved The Amazing Race to Fridays and, of course, its ratings dropped, and not to an acceptable depressed-Friday-ratings standard either. TAR was doing perfectly fine on Sundays before getting shipped off. Bring it back and see how it does. It couldn’t do worse than Madam Secretary. It serves as a segue from a news show to scripted shows, appealing to both CBS’s broad/older audience while not putting off the 18-49 demo.
Sundays is admittedly a difficult place to launch a drama, especially if you’re on network television. Cablers from AMC, HBO, Showtime, and even FX this past summer have staked their claim on Sunday nights as the place for prestige & boundary-pushing television. CBS should take its biggest, buzziest show and stick it in the 3rd hour: Supergirl. Sundays in fall particularly skew more male between Football, Walking Dead, and other testosterone-infused shows. While Supergirl will pull in comic book fans (a decidedly male-skewing demographic), it could very well intrigue and get sampling from females watching the first female superhero-starring network show in…forever?
Plant a flag on Sunday nights and follow up Supergirl with another buzzy show: Limitless.
Monday
Current Schedule: 2 Broke Girls/Mike & Molly/Scorpion/NCIS: Los Angeles
CBS’s Thursday Night Football gives it a chance to temporarily relocate its biggest comedy to help bolster its Mondays. Other than that, I wouldn’t tinker with Mondays too much; while it hovers around 2nd-3rd place for the night, Scorpion is probably the most stable of CBS’s new shows this past season. Additionally, moving NCIS: Los Angeles in its 10/9 o’clock hour, while leading to a bit of 
a steeper-than-predicted ratings depreciation, has managed to shore up an hour CBS has had trouble with. Its ratings have mostly stabilized. The question becomes which new comedy to have follow TBBT on Mondays? CBS hasn’t ordered too many comedies thusfar (that might change when they officially announce their schedule at their upfronts presentation), but out of the two ordered so far, Jane Lynch-starring Angel from Hell sounds better. After TBBT moves back to Thursdays, Angel from Hell will probably mesh at least decently with its presumed lead-in 2 Broke Girls.
Tuesday
Current Schedule: NCIS/NCIS: New Orleans/Person of Interest
Tuesdays is mostly firm night for CBS, but its ratings slide from the beginning to end of the 2014-15 season are worrying. The back-to-back NCIS programming might be burning out audiences who may getting their fill of NCIS after 1 hour of the show. Move NCIS: New Orleans to another night. After spending its entire 12 seasons anchoring Tuesdays, it may be time to shift NCIS (this was also right around the same time in CSI’s life that CBS moved it from its Thursday night perch). Move NCIS an hour later and help it launch a new show (sorry Person of Interest, in my scenario it gets cancelled). Put another buzzy movie-to-TV show adaptation into the 8/7c slot,, Rush Hour will probably get some sampling for its initial episode, and will counterprogram NBC’s The Voice in the same hour. That it’s a cop show will fit in with NCIS. Place Code Black, CBS’s medical drama in the 10/9 o’clock hour
Wednesday
Current Schedule: Survivor/Criminal Minds/CSI: Cyber
The first 2 hours are good enough for now, though CBS has been having some struggles in the last hour on Wednesdays. Reports are that CSI: Cyber has been renewed. Whether or not it has, let’s not place it back in its old time slot where it premiered modestly and by the end of its run was routinely beaten by competition on NBC (Chicago P.D.) and ABC (Nashville). NCIS: New Orleans goes into the 10/9 hour to stem the bleeding and hopefully stabilize the hour.
Thursday
Current Schedule: The Big Bang Theory/The Odd Couple/Mom/TBBT repeat/Elementary
With the relative dearth of comedy orders from CBS coupled with its struggles maintaining 2 hours of comedies on Thursday (it currently has a TBBT repeat regularly scheduled for the night) AND its many drama renewals, it’s conceivable that it will cut back an hour of comedies on Thursday.
But, I’m more bearish than bullish on the likelihood of that possibility so sticking with the 2 hours of comedy that CBS currently has, and assuming The Odd Couple gets renewed (it had a pretty good hold of TBBT’s audience until it tapered off a bit towards the tail end of its run), have TBBT & Mom continue leading off the 7(/8) and 8(/9) hours, with The Odd Couple sandwiched between them and and Mom leading out to new family comedy Life in Pieces. Initially I was adamant that Elementary would move to Friday (and still think that very well could be the case), but given how I’ve scheduled the preceding days and not seeing any chance of Madam Secretary moving to Thursday, I reluctantly keep Elementary in its place. It’s definitely a prime candidate for a move to Friday given its trending downward ratings.
Friday
Current Schedule: The Amazing Race/Hawaii Five-0/Blue Bloods
Hawaii Five-0 could very well get cancelled, but I’m a bit more optimistic about its survival chances. I don’t see Madam Secretary getting a chance to lead in to any programs so stick it into the last hour and shift the current scripted shows on Friday back an hour.
2015-16 CBS television schedule
new shows in italics
Sunday: 60 Minutes/The Amazing Race/Supergirl/Limitless
Monday: The Big Bang Theory/Angel from Hell/Scorpion/NCIS: Los Angeles
(After football: 2 Broke Girls replaces TBBT)
Tuesday: Rush Hour/NCIS/Code Black
Wednesday: Survivor/Criminal Minds/NCIS: New Orleans
Thursday: Thursday Night Football
(After football: The Big Bang Theory/The Odd Couple/Mom/Life in Pieces/Elementary)
Friday: Hawaii Five-0/Blue Bloods/Madam Secretary
Last Year’s Upfront Preview:
Part 3: CBS
Part 3: ABC
Part 2: Pilot Preview
Part 1: Cancel/Renew
AVthatsme 