All Three CSIs Win Timeslots

The CSI franchise performed well over the past week, with each of the three CSI shows winning its timeslot. But the news wasn't so good for the other big crime franchise on TV, Law & Order, which may be facing the cancellation of its latest spin-off.

On Wednesday, CSI: New York's "The Closer" was seen by 14.55 million people, a figure comparable to that of New York's other recent episodes. For the third week in a row, CSI: NY beat the original Law & Order, which attracted only 12.22 million people. Variety noted that this represented a 32% drop in viewership numbers from last year.

The weakness of the original L&O wasn't the worst news for super-producer Dick Wolf last week. On Thursday, Variety reported that NBC may be thinking of cancelling Law & Order: Trial By Jury, the L&O spin-off that launched this Spring. Airing on Fridays at 10:00pm, the show has been averaging about 11 million viewers per episode, which gives it a consistent second place in the timeslot, behind CBS's Numb3rs, and also makes it the weakest of the four Law & Orders. But a cancellation would still be surprising, as NBC's schedule isn't exactly overflowing with success stories this year, and it has a very long relationship with the production company behind L&O. A cancellation would also be the first tangible sign of audience over-saturation with crime shows, after years of expansion by the CSI and Law & Order franchises, and their many knock-offs.

Going back to CSI, CBS's star franchise so far isn't showing a lot of signs of audience fatigue. On Monday, Miami's "Vengeance" was watched by 19.7 million viewers, only slightly down from last week. This meant that more people watched Miami than its closest two competitors combined: NBC's Medium, which attracted 12.8 million viewers, and ABC's Extreme Makeover: Wedding Edition, for which only 5.6 million people tuned in.

Finally, on Thursday, this season's penultimate episode of the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was watched by 26.2 million viewers, a number that was again fairly close to that of the previous week. "Iced" faced strong competition from the season finale of The Apprentice, but even though Donald Trump's audience of 14.5 million was his biggest since early March, he was still no match for Gil Grissom. Just like on Monday, CBS managed to win the overall night on Thursday -- only on Wednesday did it have to let an American Idol-fueled Fox go first.

For more on last week's ratings, read Variety's original reports on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Also available is the trade paper's original report on the Law & Order: Trial by Jury cancellation worries -- but you'll need to be registered with Variety.com to read the full text of any of the articles.

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