CBS President and CEO George Cheeks told TheWrap on Wednesday that even though NBC plans to dump its 10 p.m. hourly show, CBS doesn’t intend to follow suit.
“We are committed to 10 PM and continue our ratings success over that time period,” Gaal said in a statement. Some of the network’s biggest hits air on 10, including the procedural dramas “Blue Bloods,” “FBI: Most Wanted,” and “NCIS: Hawaii” as well as the late-night staple “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.” Huh.
His remarks came after Hearst TV chief Jordan Wertlieb predicted that ABC and CBS would follow suit if NBC decides to hand over the 10 p.m. slot to its local partners. Wertlieb was part of Wednesday’s panel at NAB Show New York where a potentially game-changing move was discussed.
Panelists including NBCUniversal local president Valerie Staub, Sinclair Broadcast Group president-CEO Chris Ripley were all in favor of reducing the primetime hour to a third. Staub said assigning slots to affiliates “will be a huge opportunity for us across the board.”
If NBC does ax its 10 p.m. programming, it will skip the “Law & Order” spinoff “Organized Crime,” which airs the third hour of the Dick Wolf franchise on Thursday.
CBS’s own Dick Wolf block, “FBI,” “FBI: Most Wanted,” and “FBI: International,” continued to deliver top ratings for the network on Tuesday. According to Nielsen’s Live Plus same-day data, “Most Wanted” had an increase in overall average viewership last week.
Monday’s episode of “NCIS: Hawaii” received 0.38 in ratings and averaged nearly 5 million total viewers, a full mark in ratings from the previous week.
The season 13 premiere of “Blue Bloods” was also a win with 6.4 million viewers.
