CBS Only Has Room For 3 or 4 New Shows Next Season; Producing 6 Less Pilots

COMMENTS (26)

• I haven’t read all of the drama scripts yet, but I’ve read most of them. Based purely on the scripts and knowing nothing of the execution, Washington Fields and The Good Wife are locks. The Good Wife is certainly the best legal pilot script this season and Washington Fields is a lock for the post-CSI timeslot with its sexy multi-ethnic cast, high-tech feel, and high-adrenaline terrorism investigation unit. Then of course there’s the NCIS spin-off.

  Comment by Wanna-Writer-Be — Tuesday March 3, 2009 @ 5:29pm PST  Reply to this post

• I hope they’re crime dramas. Crime Broadcasting Systems must stand!

  Comment by F. — Tuesday March 3, 2009 @ 6:23pm PST  Reply to this post

• Any sitcoms?

  Comment by Curious George — Tuesday March 3, 2009 @ 6:49pm PST  Reply to this post

• There sitcom pilot The Big D sounds good!!

  Comment by Parm — Tuesday March 3, 2009 @ 7:13pm PST  Reply to this post

• Don’t base it on scripts. Base it on cost and foreign pre-sales. Since when do the best scripts end up being the shows that get on the air?

  Comment by Klaatu — Tuesday March 3, 2009 @ 7:27pm PST  Reply to this post

• @Klaatu

  That’s why I said “based purely on the scripts.” It won’t be, but that’s all I have to go on, as casting isn’t even done on these things, let along a finished production. But you can’t go on cost or foreign pre-sales. The networks don’t care about that. That’s for the studios. For the networks, it’s license fees and, well, whether they think it will work for them / attract advertising money.

  Comment by Wanna-Writer-Be — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 12:16am PST  Reply to this post

• I give CBS credit – they have quite a few good shows. The latest ratings shows that they have twelve of the top twenty shows. NBC on the other hand has zero, zilch, nada. That fact has nothing to do with the post but I like ragging on Ben Silverman whenever I can.

  Comment by JD — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 1:50am PST  Reply to this post

• Let’s hope they don’t cancel one of their best shows that they managed to barely promote this year-THE UNIT.

  The last thing we viewers need is yet another spin off of a show already on. Enough is enough already!

  Comment by Becca — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 3:49am PST  Reply to this post

• CBS, I know “Worst Week” didn’t work, but please don’t give up on trying to make a successful cutting edge comedy. Safe dreck like “Rules of Engagement” makes me never want to turn into your network again.

  Comment by Hopeful — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 9:00am PST  Reply to this post

• they are producing ’6 fewer’.

  you suck, your grammar sucks, your politics suck.

  moron.

  Comment by brad — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 9:07am PST  Reply to this post

• As far as I know Warners is only shooting four pilots. On the other hand, Moonves saying he’s only going to pick up 3 or 4 new shows is good news for those of us that already have shows on CBS. I hope…!

  Comment by Billy — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 9:18am PST  Reply to this post

• Moonves was smart in understanding the sitcom is not dead, nor is the tv model broken. He seems to be the only one who gets this. However, he needs to ease up on all the dumb guy/sexist shows and mix it up with some intelligent shows, strong female shows, etc When the economy gets pinched, studios always run for the lowest common denominator sexist material.

  TV viewership is up, just not on the networks. Who wants to watch constant reality shows and procedurals. Much of the high cost of network shows seems to go to star salaries. To make up the costs, it seems the networks cut down on shows and filled the schedule with cheap reality shows. That ultimately drove away viewers and created a downward spiral. For example, Charlie Sheen pulls in such excessive money for that crap show, when he could still make a nice living and some of that money could go towards other salaries for other shows. The tv model isn’t broken. The network pie is just unbalanced to such a degree that it’s breaking down the model.

  Comment by Hmm — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 11:34am PST  Reply to this post

• Hmm. You’re wrong, the network TV model is broken because shows cost too much to produce and networks have too many people making too much money. If an episode of a sitcom costs 1.5mill (and Sarah f’ing Silverman costs 1.1?!?!?!) that’s stupid when MTV and Discovery are doing it for 150k. Same with Moonves making 40 million+. The party is over and the reality is TV needs to be run like a real business where your input costs are controlled.

  Comment by new model — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 12:35pm PST  Reply to this post

• New Model – that is exactly the point; and that is exactly the OPPOSITE of what unions are trying to do. When did scale ever go DOWN? When did post-60′s get cut? They don’t. … and the SAG controversy continues.

  Comment by Good Point — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 5:01pm PST  Reply to this post

• @Good Point

  Yeah, because SAG scale is what’s putting the budget over…

  Comment by Whatever! — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 7:02pm PST  Reply to this post

• Rumor has it Adam Carolla may have a sitcom pilot brewing at CBS. Yes, he’s mostly known as radio yuckster, but I find him to be absolutely hilarious and his observational humor is on par with Seinfeld’s. If Jerry and Ray Romano can become sitcom stars, why not Carolla, if the writing is good? Here’s hoping his show makes the cut!

  Comment by eldon — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 7:18pm PST  Reply to this post

• yes – I also needed to say “6 fewer” not “6 less.” Your politics are just fine. Your grammar is usually fine too.

  Comment by Dan — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 8:25pm PST  Reply to this post

• i feel stupid for typing this but i hope CBS is smart enough to leave Garry Unmarried where it is. It regularly holds on to Old Christine’s aud and even sometimes improves it (granted some of that might be from early tune in for Criminal minds but still Old Christine’s and Garry’s very unlikely success in the Wed at 8 timeslot should be rewarded.

  Also I too really really really like The Unit and hope CBS is wise enough to let it reat where it is on Sunday nights. I’d like very much for this show to have enough to be able to hit syndication because i feel this is a show that could gain thousands of fans currently unaware of its existence in reruns in the next several years to come.

  other then that what are the timeslots that are really up for grabs if you think about it? Thurs at 10 obviously (audios Eleventh Hour.) but what else is really up for grabs? Fridays at 9? I know Flashpoint isn’t doing inspiring numbers demo wise but have they not realized by now how hard that timeslot is to program? what else tho? everything else pretty much seems like its working for them–and that includes the return of Rules of Engagement (i’m not sure why they put it on hiatus to start with.) we’ll see.

  Comment by matt — Wednesday March 4, 2009 @ 10:58pm PST  Reply to this post

• I hope that CBS greenlights the Zwick/Herskovitz pilot I heard about. We need more relationship dramas on TV, not more crime & law dramas. Overall, CBS does the best job with scripted material, with the exception of Lost.

  Comment by atlanta — Thursday March 5, 2009 @ 5:54am PST  Reply to this post

• Do any of you remember the shape CBS was in when Moonves took over? No Letterman. No NFL. And “Touched By an Angel” was the highest rated program on the net at that time. Besides “Survivor” and the “CSI’s,” he rescued a show from a rival net and it spun off a new hit from it called “NCIS.” Now, what exactly should Moonves be paid?

  Comment by John from Daejeon — Thursday March 5, 2009 @ 6:14am PST  Reply to this post

• Speaking of what things cost, and how much people are paid – I worked on Ray Romano’s show. It started off quite inexpensively, but ended with a $6M license fee and Ray getting close to a third of that. But CBS still made, quite literally, a ton of money from it.

  Sure, Ray got rich, but CBS got much richer. As well, from a crew guy’s perspective, Ray (and Phil Rosenthal) had no problem with sharing the wealth – from all of us enjoying the same wonderful food (as opposed to a select few allowed into the green room), to paying us all massive amounts of money.

  I don’t see how this hurts anyone else. There was still plenty of money left for CBS to do with whatever it liked…

  Comment by Billy — Friday March 6, 2009 @ 8:59am PST  Reply to this post

• Letterman was at CBS two years before Les. 1993.

  Comment by Now Here's Dave — Friday March 6, 2009 @ 3:24pm PST  Reply to this post

• the UNIT 11 MIL VIEWERS AND NO ADVERTISEMENT – WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF PEOPLE FOUND OUT ABOUT THE SHOW

  GREAT WRITING AND ACTING- ONLY IF THEY COULD RUN SEVERAL SHOWS IN A ROW AND ADVERTISE

  PLEASE LET THE HIT BE A HIT

  Comment by Marc — Tuesday March 31, 2009 @ 8:49pm PDT  Reply to this post

• CBS with the hour long crime shows such as Without A Trace, Cold Case all in the top 20 now for weeks. why would they cancel any of these to add reality shows or sitcoms that nobody will watch. Come on CBS keep our favorite Shows on Sunday and Tuesday in the time slots they have now. Cut some costs, get rid of all those extra’s walking around the FBI offices, they are just background that nobody cares about. It’s the stories and the stars that we like.

  Comment by bernice — Thursday April 2, 2009 @ 7:17pm PDT  Reply to this post

• KATE MOENNIG!!!…THREE RIVERS!!!

  Comment by lork92 — Friday May 15, 2009 @ 10:13pm PDT  Reply to this post