You know, I see the CSI franchise like the tide. As it began to flow, Vegas was the first to premiere, then Miami premiered in 2002, and finally New York two years later. Now however, with the tide ebbing, New York is likely to die after this season, then Miami either next year or 2013-ish, and then finally Vegas itself in 2014 after 14 or 15 seasons. I'm almost certain the flagship Vegas show will be the last to go.
10 million is still great, there are so many new shows now, they have to compete with, if it got down to 2 million, I'd be worried
The ratings are down. It's normal because you can watch CSI everywhere and the competition is getting tougher. But let's not forget how beast CSI was on TV. The following list shows how CSI did every episode 21 since season 1. :thumbsup: Season 1 'Justice is Served' - 8.6/21 A18-49 - no data Season 2 'Anatomy of a Lye' - no data - 26.17 million viewers Season 3 'Forever' - 8.9 - 24.8 million viewers Season 4 'Turn of the Screws' - 6.5/14 A18-49 - 20.39 million viewers Season 5 'Committed' - 8.3/21 A18-49 - 23.68 million viewers Season 6 'Rashomama' - 8.7/22 A18-49 - 27.37 million viewers Season 7 'Ending Happy' - 5.9/15 A18-49 - 20.20 million viewers Season 9 'If I Had A Hammer' - 3.7/9 A18-49 - 14.64 million viewers Season 10 'Lost and Found' - 3.1/9 A18-49 - 14.15 million viewers What does 8.6/21 (rating/share) A18-49 mean? It means 8.6% of ALL (WATCHING + NOT WATCHING TV) adults ages 18-49 were watching CSI during that hour and that was 21% of adults 18-49 WATCHING TV during that hour. source
Competition or not, the ratings for CSI this week were totally unacceptable. Thursday is a big night for advertisers, i.e. movie premieres and weekend retail sales, and there is no way in hell that CBS can keep a show on the night that only gets a 2.2 in the demos in the 9:00 tentpole timeslot. Hawaii 5-0, The Good Wife, and Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, which air in the much lower viewership 10:00 hour, all beat CSI in the demo this week. The prevailing opinion is that CBS will be moved to Friday next season, either in place of CSI:NY (i.e. New Drama/CSI/Blue Bloods) or in the 8:00 timeslot (i.e. CSI/CSI:NY/Blue Bloods). However, just because the show has been so valuable to CBS for so long, I'm hoping they try it on Wednesday after Criminal Minds (i.e. Survivor/CM/CSI) before they banish it to Friday.
I hope CSI stays on Thursdays 9pm (with major overhaul) or maybe 10pm or as you said Wednesdays after Criminal Minds would be great too. Not Friday because that means either NY is gone or CSI will drop even more
Those ratings are bad.Hope the producers are already making changes for next season.I am tired of Haskell but CSI is still a very good show.
I think dropping the Haskell storyline will help, but I also think TV shows go through cycles. IMO, in its last two seasons "Law & Order" was the best it had been in quite some time. It had a revamped cast, renewed energy and overall better stories than we'd seen for several years. But all that wasn't enough to improve its ratings (it didn't help that NBC moved it to Friday nights), so it was canceled. I think that in the end, a lot of shows -- even the good ones -- run their course, and people get tired of them. Focusing so exclusively on Ray -- a relatively new team member -- and Haskell didn't help, IMO. If they had to go this route, the powers that be would have been better off serving this in smaller portions, and not spread out over so many years. This isn't just hindsight; it should be common knowledge that viewers are loyal to the characters they've come to know; that fan base hasn't been built up for the newcomer. (I know; three years later, Ray is not exactly a newbie . . . but he's not a veteran on the team, either.) The powers that be took a risk which hasn't paid off, unfortunately.
On Ray, he's going to be in S/12, [his 4th season] and some people are still calling him "new", I think his portrayal of Dr. Raymond Langston, has been a great move for CSI. If, he wasn't a "hit" they would have said "bye-bye" ages ago. And on ratings being below par, there's just so many other shows to compete with now. I guess TPTB know what their doing or what is happening wouldn't be happening
Of course there are so many other shows to compete with. But it's telling that "NCIS" (which I don't watch, by the way) has managed to find a way around that and is pulling in the same level of viewership that "CSI" used to. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere. One factor in the success of "NCIS" is that, while they are a team, they have a charismatic leader, much the way "CSI" used to have in Petersen. Somehow, that dynamic has been lost in "CSI" (I know you will disagree with that, as you like Fishburne; so do I, but I also think there are major problems with the way his character has been written). That seems to be the magic "it" that is lacking in "CSI" right now. The powers that be seem to be trying to cultivate that with Lawrence Fishburne's character, but as we have seen from posts on this forum, it hasn't worked out with many of the fans. I actually think Marg could have pulled that off, had she been allowed to do so.
I think that both Marg and Nick are very popular characters. I'm always going to wonder "what if" as to having Marg and Nick as the leads instead of bringing in someone. I think that they could've pulled it off and it would've been nice to see the development in both their characters since more storylines would've been given to them both. Maybe having these two very loved characters as leads would've helped the ratings and it'd be a different story now. Who knows? But if they were really obssesed with bringing in someone then I guess they best way would've been to bring in a character with the expertise of Gil and just have him take over as supervisor. I think that's one of the reasons Ray's character has been so...conflicted. Sela's replacement of Melina in NY has been much better handled and I think that one of the reasons is that she replaced both Melina and Stella. Laurence replaced William but not Grissom and it's been kind of a mess IMO.
I think the problem that faced the powers that be with "CSI" is that Melina's character on the New York spin-off was still second to Gary's (much as Marg's was to Billy's). Had Marg been the one to leave first, I suspect they would've replaced her with someone similarly empowered (as they did with Sela's character). The problem was, Billy was the one to leave, so now you have to replace a beloved team leader, played by an actor who always wanted the focus to be on the team. With him leaving, it left them in a real conundrum, because I'm sure there would have been complaints -- as there were, and are -- about not moving Catherine up to Grissom's position, but rather replacing Grissom with a newbie. I actually liked the way they introduced Ray, and wish they would've kept him that way, rather than (apparently) fast-tracking him into the leadership role. I liked the fact that he was learning, because it took us back to those early seasons of "CSI" where part of the focus was on enabling us in the audience to learn along with the CSIs. But the writers never seem to have settled on who Ray really is. Is he the intellectual student, whom I liked best? Or is he the super-sleuth who has to solve everything? My guess is that the powers that be fear having a main character perceived as "weak" (which I did not, by the way). So it's almost like they felt they had to overcompensate by turning Fishburne's character into a "Super Ray" who can do it all. When Petersen left, I knew it would leave a big hole, and initially I thought they had it worked out pretty well. But since then, there have been some major missteps, IMO, that show they really didn't have it figured out in terms of filling that void. One show that pulled this off very well is "Criminal Minds" (filling Mandy Patinkin's abrupt departure with Joe Mantegna). The ratings seem to be holding their own since that casting change, and while I don't follow the show closely, I'm also not seeing the kinds of complaints that we're seeing here.
Introducing Ray as a newbie was an original idea and I also liked it in the beginning. I guess what I'm trying to say is that now that I know how it turned out I would've prefered for the new guy to just replace Gil and be done with it. But hindsight is always 20/20 so I do give kudos to tptb for trying something new. I just think they kind of got lost along the way with juggling giving emphasis to the lead and trying to determine the character's expertise or lack thereof. Maybe they could've moved up Catherine as supervisor and bring in the male lead as second in command. But like I said hindsight is always 20/20 and tptb took a risk with a different idea and I respect that. It just didn't quite work out.
Everything is relative. While the 10.673 million viewers figure for "Cello" was a series low, it was still good enough to put CSI in 15th place for the week ending May 8th, tied for its lowest ranking of the season. "Hitting for the Cycle" was also 15th, but it had 12.76 million viewers. It needs to be pointed out that numbers were down overall for ALL shows, not just CSI. NCIS and American Idol were both off by 3 or 4 million viewers, with NCIS pulling in a hair under 18 million--it's usually around 21 million. CSI has been getting its butt kicked in the demo numbers for years, so that is nothing new. Enough with the gloom and doom!
True, but I don't think ratings are, in and of themselves, the only thing to consider. One reason why "Law & Order" was canceled was not just because of its dropping ratings, but also because it was so expensive to produce. "CSI" (and its spin-offs) may face a similar problem. If its ratings are no better than shows with half the budget, then the lower budget shows may actually stand a better chance for renewal than their pricier counterparts. I don't know . . . and in "CSI"'s case, I hope not. But I don't think it's something we can ignore, either.