CBS fall schedule 2024

CBS’ fall schedule: Stick with the steady viewers

As younger viewers drift away, TV networks pondered alternate solutions:
1) Go after them. Copy what the streaming networks are doing. Get guttier and grittier. Interweave some tough stories that stretch over eight or 10 hours.
2) Don’t chase them; they won’t be back anyway. Service the viewers you still have.
That second one has worked fairly well in the Nielsen ratings for CBS. Now it ripples through the play-it-safe line-up the network has announced for fall, including a “Matlock” reboot (shown here). Read more…

CBS’ fall line-up: prequels and familiar crimesolvers

CBS has set a fall schedule filled with the familiar.
It will have two prequels (one of which is also a sequel), two familiar crimesolving names (Matlock and Dr. Watson) and few surprises.
The biggest surprise may be the omission of two shows (“NCIS: Hawaii” and “So Help Me Todd”) … and the name of the show that takes over the Sheldon space. It’s “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage.”
That one (shown here) is a sequel to “Young Sheldon,” but still a prequel to “The Big Bang Theory” … and will occupy the same timeslot (8 p.m. Thursdays) both of those shows had. “Ghosts” will remain at 8:30, with “Elsbeth” at 10. Now “Matlock” – with Kathy Bates taking the Andy Griffith role as a folksy old lawyer – replaces “So Help Me Todd” at 9. Read more…