CBS kicked off a flashy fall premiere week Sunday, using the wide viewership brought by a football doubleheader to launch a week’s worth of new and returning shows with a bang.
It was a night of two female-led mysteries, as Sunday marked the return of the Emmy-nominated, Kathy Bates-fronted “Matlock” and “The Good Wife” spinoff series “Elsbeth,” about a kooky lawyer who partners with the NYPD to solve murder investigations.
Both shows carry the signature “CBS show” feeling of a trusty procedural that takes creative swings, and are not coincidentally among the network’s most-watched offerings among broadcasters and overall.
They’re also programming pillars for CBS, which is coming off its 17th-consecutive season as the most-watched broadcast network. It’s a lofty perch that has allowed the network to bring back beloved shows year after year, a key ingredient to its consistency, but CBS also stands apart in the 2025-26 season in that it’s launching several new shows while other networks fill time slots with cheaper unscripted fare or sports. Given that the Tiffany Network has been home to the most-watched new series for the past nine TV seasons in a row, they’ve earned the benefit of the doubt to keep greenlighting new scripted projects. The CBS machine is working.
“We’re here to reach the biggest audience possible. And clearly, the audience is there for these shows,” CBS entertainment president Amy Reisenbach told TheWrap.
But there’s added pressure on this week’s launch of new and returning shows. Not even CBS is immune to linear television revenue continuing its year-over-year decline, and parent company Paramount has pledged to cut costs across the board after its merger with production company Skydance. The network’s ratings dominance and George Cheeks — the sole executive from the prior regime to stay — still leading CBS likely give the network more stability than other assets in the media empire, but it’s anybody’s guess how deep the cuts will go in the next month.
“We’ve definitely had to meet the moment financially, but we’ve worked really closely with the studio to figure out innovative ways to make sure our shows are able to stay viable from a financial perspective, as well as creatively strong,” Reisenbach added.
All this adds pressure to the success of CBS premiere week, but network executives are confident that its quality programming will keep loyal audiences tuned in.
“There’s so much great television out there right now, but this is really our way of planting our flag and cutting through the noise to say we’re back and we’re back in a big way,” Reisenbach said.
Don’t mess with success
From Oct. 12-19, the network will debut 15 new and returning scripted series, the most of any broadcaster this season. Among them are three “NCIS” shows, “Fire Country” and its new spinoff “Sheriff Country” starring Morena Baccarin, “Big Bang Theory” spinoff “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” the popular ensemble comedy “Ghosts” and a new “Blue Bloods” spinoff, titled “Boston Blue.”
The fall lineup also boasts the Taylor Sheridan-produced music competition series “The Road,” featuring Keith Urban, Blake Shelton and more country stars. There’s also a new workplace comedy set inside a DMV (aptly titled “DMV”) and new seasons of “Survivor” and “The Amazing Race.”
Reisenbach and CBS Studios president David Stapf said the success of their programming is due to the network’s close development relationship with its sibling studio, which helps create shows that draw audiences across platforms.
Even new Paramount CEO David Ellison boasted about CBS’ fall lineup at Bloomberg Screentime last week, calling it the “strongest lineup, arguably, in the company’s history.”
“The audience has come to appreciate the consistency, they know they’re going to get quality year after year and show after show,” Stapf told TheWrap in an exclusive interview alongside Reisenbach, who added, “We’ve continued to evolve the brand, keeping the shows feeling fresh and yet keeping the ‘CBS show’ feeling and giving the audience more of what they want.”
The latest example of that strategy is “Boston Blue,” the Donnie Wahlberg-led spinoff born out of the conclusion of “Blue Bloods” after a 14-season run. Reisenbach credited producers and Jerry Bruckheimer Television for finding the right angle to continue the DNA of the beloved Friday night police drama. The new series takes Wahlberg’s Danny Reagan to Boston, where he inadvertently starts a new partnership with Sonequa Martin-Green’s Lena Silver, leading to a mix of police work and family gatherings around a new dinner table.
A fruitful partnership
CBS’ programming strategy has proven to draw viewership beyond its linear roots. “Tracker,” which is produced by 20th Television, and “Matlock” are among the top eight TV shows in total 35-day multiplatform viewing among all streamers and broadcasters. The Justin Hartley-led “Tracker” landed third at 17 million viewers last season, behind Netflix’s “Squid Game” and the Emmy-winning “Adolescence,” while “Matlock” landed at No. 8 with an audience of 15.7 million. CBS also has 11 of the top 20 programs in total 35-day multiplatform viewing among broadcasters.
CBS Studios produces 10 of those 11 series, validating Reisenbach and Stapf’s strategy of leaning on its symbiotic development relationship to deliver hits. That partnership spawned the spinoff series “Sheriff Country,” which makes its debut Friday after the Season 4 premiere of its flagship “Fire Country.”
The show was first ordered in spring 2024, but Reisenbach opted to wait for a fall 2025 launch to allow the writers to fully bake their ideas for the new show. As the creative team fine-tuned the storyline, the network could seed Baccarin’s Mickey Fox into episodes of “Fire Country” to get audiences hooked, while also promoting the show in promos during telecasts of NCAA basketball last spring to raise awareness.
“All these things come together to create the best opportunity and platform to launch the show,” Reisenbach said. A similar strategy is in mind for the upcoming “Einstein” drama series starring “Criminal Minds” alum Matthew Gray Gubler, which was held for a 2026-27 launch.
“The genius of the network is strategically looking at the schedule not just in the immediate but far down the road,” Stapf added. “Amy does a really good job of playing chess with all of it.”
An uncertain future
Reisenbach’s latest schedule for CBS charts a programming roadmap through May 2026. Beyond the fall, the network plans to premiere a “Yellowstone” spinoff starring Luke Grimes, an “FBI” spinoff set in the CIA and two competition shows “Harlan Coben’s Final Twist” and Padma Lakshmi’s “America’s Culinary Cup.”
“Suvivor” will air its 50th season in the first half of 2026 and “Big Brother” host Julie Chen Moonves assured fans that the summertime competition show would be back for another season next year, though an official renewal has yet to be announced.
“We don’t see the shows going anywhere,” Reisenbach said of the CBS unscripted staples, which also includes “The Amazing Race.” Reisenbach and Stapf also set new contract extensions at CBS ahead of the Skydance merger to remain by Cheeks’ side at the helm of Paramount’s broadcast arm for at least the next three years.
But the future is uncertain. The promise of cuts looms as Ellison and new leadership focus on bolstering Paramount+ — which benefits from strong viewership of CBS content — along with its film slate. Cheeks also spoke previously of Paramount’s interest in adding more sports programming, signaling a potential for fewer slots in the network’s schedule should more sports rights come flooding in.
As for late night, Reisenbach told TheWrap it’s too soon for them to share what will happen with the “Late Show” timeslot after Colbert signs off, “We’re grateful to have the opportunity to celebrate Colbert’s final season with him.”
CBS brass is optimistic the broadcast network’s track record will keep it from total transformation.
“The new leadership doesn’t feel new in the sense that they come from the same place we do. Skydance was a production company — a really good one — and we speak the same language,” Stapf said. “They really have shown a tremendous amount of appreciation for what we all do at both the studio and the network.”
