Sunday night saw three season finales as The Amazing Race (2.3/6), The Mentalist (1.7/5) and Red Widow (0.9/2) wrapped up their runs. The long-running CBS reality series ended its 22nd season with a two-hour finale that was the highest-rated regularly scheduled show of the night. Still, Race dipped 4% from its April 28 show and was down 15% from the 2.7/7 of its Season 21 finale on May 6, 2012. The Mentalist followed and concluded its fifth season with the true identity of serial killer Red John narrowed to seven names. The second-most-watched show of the night, the police procedural bopped up 6% from last week. However, compared to its Season 4 finale on May 17, 2012, Mentalist was down 32%. Earlier in the night, 7 PM’s 60 Minutes (1.2/4) was the most-watched show of the night with 10.50 million viewers, though it fell 20% to a season low. With 9.393 million watching, CBS won Sunday in total viewers, while Fox was tops in adults 18-49. READ MORE »
CBS Unveils Details About Season Finales

CBS today announced details about the upcoming finales of its series, whose dates were unveiled last month. Here are some highlights:
Undercover Boss will end its fourth season with two episodes featuring the top bosses and the top employees from all previous seasons. Survivor: Caramoan‘s reunion show will … Read More »
‘Mentalist’ Trio Sell Female Cop Show To CBS

EXCLUSIVE: The Mentalist creator/executive producer Bruno Heller and the series’ executive producers Ashley Gable and Tom Szentgyorgyi have set up a new crime drama at CBS. Titled Murder Bitches, it centers on two young female detectives who are complete opposites, their relationship made more complicated by the fact that one of them suffered a stroke two years ago at age 27. They’re known on the force, in admiration and envy, as the Murder Bitches. Gable and Szentgyorgyi will write the script and executive produce with Heller. Mentalist producer Warner Bros TV, where Heller is under an overall deal, is producing. Read More »
How Will NFL’s Kickoff Time Change Affect CBS’ Sunday Schedule?

Starting this fall, the NFL‘s 4:15 PM Sunday games will start at 4:25 PM, the league announced today. The move is designed to reduce the number of instances when stations have to cut away from the final minutes of … Read More »
CBS’ 2012-13 Schedule: ‘Two & Half Men’ Moves To Thursday, ‘Mentalist’ To Sunday

Every year, CBS goes for a couple of major scheduling moves in anchor slots. This year, it is 2 Broke Girls moving to the tentpole Monday 9 PM position after breaking out at 8:30 PM this season. After seven seasons in the Monday 9 PM slot, Two And A Half Men is moving to the Thursday 8:30 slot behind The Big Bang Theory. That is a role-reversal for the two comedies as Big Bang grew into a hit behind Men on Monday. The 2 Broke Girls move reflects CBS’ strategy to support “shows that have momentum, trying to catch them on the way up,” CBS’ scheduling guru Kelly Kahl said at the network’s press breakfast. As for sending Men to Thursday, “we’ve created a super comedy hour,” Kahl said. Men was brought over because the network had difficulty finding a show as broad as Big Bang for the 8:30 PM slot to create flow on the night and help 9 PM drama Person Of Interest grow.
Kahl took a snipe at ABC, NBC and Fox, which all scheduled single-camera comedies in the Tuesday 9 PM hour, calling the pileup “a comedy Sigalert”. “It’s good to have a drama there,” he said of CBS, which is sticking with NCIS: LA in the slot. CBS’ entertainment president Nina Tassler said it was a toss-up decision which CSI spinoff to cancel, which ultimately came down to whose slot the network found more suitable for The Mentalist as it didn’t want to have any of the veteran CSIs change nights again. “It was about keeping the flow, and Miami was the odd man out,” she said. As for veteran comedy Rules Of Engagement, “we’re still discussing it, no decision has been made,” Tassler said.
Related: CBS Update: ‘Rules Of Engagement’ Talks Down To The Wire, ‘Mentalist’ On The Move
CBS is introducing four new shows in the fall: comedy Partners and dramas Vegas, Elementary and Made In Jersey. The strategy was “protecting our new shows, with all of them having hits in front of them,” Kahl said. Partners follows How I Met Your Mother on Monday, Vegas is behind NCIS: LA on Tuesday, Elementary behind Person of Interest on Thursday and Made In Jersey behind CSI: NY on Friday.
Here’s the CBS 2012-2013 schedule:
(N=New, NT=New Time)
MONDAY
8 PM HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER
8:30 PM PARTNERS (N)
9 PM 2 BROKE GIRLS (NT)
9:30 PM MIKE & MOLLY
10 PM HAWAII FIVE-0
TUESDAY
8 PM NCIS
9 PM NCIS: LOS ANGELES
10 PM VEGAS (N)
CBS Update: ‘Rules Of Engagement’ Talks Down To The Wire, ‘Mentalist’ On The Move

The renewal of CBS‘ long-running sitcom Rules Of Engagement is going down to the wire. Less that 24 hours before CBS’ upfront presentation tomorrow, the network and Rules producer Sony Pictures TV continue to be deep in negotiations on a pickup. The two sides are still going back-and-forth on a number of issues, including the size of a potential seventh-season order, but there appears to be a will on both parts to make it happen. The show needs 13 episodes to get to the 100-episode mark. CBS only ordered two new comedy series for next season, so, as this season proved, having a reliable performer like Rules on the bench could come in handy. Read More »
Glimpse At CBS’ Fall Schedule? Network Tries Out ‘Mentalist’ On Friday & 8-10 PM Thursday Comedy Block

Every year at this time, CBS‘ scheduling guru Kelly Kahl experiments with moves that, if successful, lead to permanent changes on the network’s fall schedule the following season. When years ago The Big Bang Theory, then a Monday 8:30 PM show, did great when tested behind Two And A Half Men, it was moved there the following year, starting the comedy’s rapid ascent to blockbuster hit status. In January 2010, CBS tried comedy repeats, including Big Bang, in the Thursday 8-9 PM hour — then still occupied by Survivor. While they didn’t pop, the network pushed through with a move of Big Bang to Thursday 8 PM anyway, and it was successful. Most recently last season, CBS tried out Friday’s breakout Blue Bloods in the Wednesday 10 PM slot and the Thursday 10 PM player The Mentalist in the 9 PM Thursday slot. Neither did particularly well in their new berths, and CBS ultimately kept them in their old slots for this season’s schedule.
Now CBS is at it again during the slow time when many shows are in repeats. A new episode of The Mentalist airs tonight at 9 PM. As an older-skewing series (mature women love Simon Baker!), the procedural should be able to fit into CBS’ Friday lineup, paired with Blue Bloods. The experiment doesn’t bode well for the current occupant of the Friday 9 PM slot, CSI: NY, which already had its order cut this season and has been benched for a period of time. Will it be the first of the CSI series to go off the air?
The other CBS scheduling tryout is one that I have been advocating since 2 Broke Girls launched big in the fall and went on to top Two And A Half Men in the demo a couple of times — a two-hour comedy block on Thursday, something the network will pilot April 12. With NBC’s comedy lineup a shadow of its former self from the glory Must See TV days, CBS can expand its comedy invasion on the night, and it has the weapons to do it. Read More »
‘The Mentalist’ Co-Stars Get Salary Bumps

EXCLUSIVE: After renegotiating Simon Baker’s deal late last year to give the Mentalist star a major salary bump, series producer Warner Bros. TV has now done the same for the rest of the cast of the CBS crime … Read More »
Why TV Procedurals Also Rule The World
As the 51st Monte Carlo Television Awards confirmed, TV procedurals remain the world’s most popular drama format. CSI was crowned the world’s #1 television franchise at the 6th International TV Audience Awards. It pulled in 65.3 million viewers worldwide in 2010. The only other shows that came near it were CSI Miami and House. And both of those are procedurals, too. According to TV consultancy TAPE, the various CSI strands were top of the U.S. imports in France, Germany, Spain and the UK. Meanwhile procedurals NCIS, Hawaii 5-0, and House were among the most popular U.S. imports in Italy. So what is it about the format that makes it so appealing to international audiences?
For a start, procedurals are the TV equivalent of comfort food. By the end of each episode, justice is done, the disease contained, order restored. They’re reassuring for viewers. Crucially for foreign audiences, the format is easy to understand. Also, there’s hardly any serial component, so shows like CSI Miami and NCIS can be viewed in any order. Go on vacation, miss a couple of episodes? No problem, nothing has changed. That’s why Blue Bloods – a show which sounds a bit dull on paper — does so well internationally compared to a critics’ darling such as Mad Men. CBS Studios International president Armando Nunez has praised Blue Bloods as “perhaps not
as sexy to talk about, but it has proven a success both on the network and in terms of global distribution”. Blue Bloods has sold around the world not just to tiny channels but to big ones like Sky Atlantic in the UK, Australia’s Network Ten, and Discovery Latin America. John Peek, director of TAPE, whose clients include ABC, NBC and cable channels A&E and TNT, says Blue Bloods’ popularity stems from mixing up a police procedural with a family drama. CBS recently tapped Law & Order veteran Ed Zuckerman to make the show even more procedural. Peek says: “The continuing trend is for procedurals because they use a predictable structure. You know what you’re getting, which makes them palatable when they’re dubbed. Shows that obey the basic rules are easier for audiences overseas to get to grips with.” Read More »

















