CBS Renew/Cancel Week 3: NCIS Will Stay on Duty, Even as Its Franchise May Not

NCIS: The Tuesday night NCIS lineup has one thing working for it, and it’s NCIS itself. The longest-running scripted series on CBS is one of their highest-rated series as well, ranking fifth among fifteen scripted shows. There has been a noticeable decline in it ratings, but it’s been a smaller drop than just about everything else on CBS, with only Tracker posting a better year-to-year comparison. Part of that can be explained by NCIS moving back to an 8 PM slot on the night it spent nearly two decades leading, but it’s still a positive trend worth pointing out. It’s especially notable when the shows airing behind it are obviously faltering. NCIS’s 0.3s may not look that impressive, especially considering how high we’d see it rating just a few seasons ago. However, it’s the sort of sturdy, stable performer that CBS needs, especially in a time where several of their younger shows (and even a veteran like FBI) are in a state of seeming free-fall. NCIS is also one of the top streaming hits on Paramount+, one of the few CBS shows (along with Ghosts and, to a lesser extent, Tracker) to consistently chart in their top ten, even in times when it’s not airing new episodes. NCIS is a major cash cow for CBS, enough to offset the expenses that come with producing a show that’s now in its twenty-third season. This is a solid and valuable lead-in that CBS could use to boost promising new shows, even though it’s currently being wasted on struggling performers. It’s upgraded this week to a likely renewal, with the show just being too far into its run for an upgrade to certain renewal, given CBS’s recent history of axing long-running veterans with solid ratings for the sake of cost.

NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Sydney: It’s worth noting again that an NCIS night is not an inherently bad idea. It’s the sort of thing that likely would’ve worked very well for CBS five or more years ago, when they had some stronger spinoffs. But Origins and Sydney weren’t the shows to help an all-NCIS night live up to its promise. They’re both failing to live up to the solid lead-in they’re provided, which should theoretically be very compatible, as it is their parent series. This block just doesn’t feel cohesive. Retention is poor throughout the night, and Origins is CBS’s lowest-rated 9 PM scripted series, despite NCIS being one of their highest-rated series.NCIS was up last week despite competition from. the World Series, all while Origins was down for the second week in a row. It’s now just a single hundredth above the series low it achieved while airing at 10 PM in December 2024. While it would likely have been rating lower at 10 PM, given the current state of other 10 PM series on CBS, Origins should be holding up better year-to-year after getting a clear-cut time slot upgrade. Sydney, while performing worse, can at least point to the fact that it had always previously aired at 8 PM before this season, so dropping as much as it has is a bit easier to justify.. The streaming performance of Origins is also concerning, with the show failing to make an appearance on Paramount+’s streaming chart since its season two premiere. Sydney has never charted this season, which is in-line with its season two performance (its low costs and OK same-day ratings were enough to offset it). Really, CBS just has a clear problem on its hands with this Tuesday lineup. They slapped these NCIS shows together because it was the easy move, but it’s just tanked the entire night. They have two-thirds of the night pulling cancellation-worthy ratings after several years so Tuesday being a solid night or them. It seems that something is going to have to change next season to breathe new life back into Tuesdays. Canceling both series would free up a lot of scheduling space for CBS and allow some fluidity in their schedule, but CBS loves a good brand and has been very clear about that – especially one they own (sorry, FBIs). For that reason, I’d currently guess that CBS takes pity on one of their two struggling NCISes. I’m betting that that will be NCIS: Origins, which had might higher multiplatform ratings than Sydney last season, though Sydney is certainly the more cost-effective option. Origins continues to cling to a leans renewal prediction for now, and Sydney remains a leans cancellation prediction. Multiplatform ratings may change one or both of these predictions once they arrive.