I'm confused...Spike was rerunning Season 5 already yet tonight CBS has finished S4 last week and is going back to S1. I wonder what gives. And when Spike will be allowed to show S6 finally.
Usually networks purchase the seasons in packages, I am sure they already have season 6, but with that purchase is the agreements on average that they won't air the most recent season until the new season starts. So when Season 7 starts, spike will at some point start airing season 6 eps. they do this alot of times because in the agreement they allow CBS to finish out the repeating of that season. Hope this helps and not confused.
Usually after they start the syndication repeats, the usual repeating stations including CBS's Sat/sunday nights are allowed to repeat as well.