CBS Starts Out On Top

Fall finds CBS at the head of the pack.

During the first month of the 2008-2009 TV season, CBS has earned top ratings in viewers, as well as two key demographics: adults 25 to 54 and adults 18 to 49. Veteran series such as CSI: New York, NCIS and Two and a Half Men are receiving higher ratings than last season. In the 18-49 demo, NBC is down 19% from last fall, ABC is down 18% and Fox is down 15% (due in part to disappointing numbers for baseball games). CBS is down 8%, but its decline is smaller than the other networks.

"Everybody was saying that the world is different, the world has changed," CBS Corporation President and CEO Leslie Moonves told TV Week. "But ultimately, it turns out that it's still about the programming…. People still want to see their favorite shows." Viewers also want to see new programming, and The Mentalist is one of two big hits so far this season (Fringe on Fox is the other). "You look across our schedule and we're just really solid," Moonves said.

Moonves said CBS "pulled out all the stops" to get a normal scripted lineup on the air after the writers' strike, while other networks chose to wait before bringing back shows like Heroes and 24. "I think some of the people [at other networks] who didn't go back into originals immediately might be regretting it now," he said. "Some shows were off the air for eight or nine months. That's a long time to expect people to remember to come back to a show."

According to Moonves, CBS is best at broad shows with mass appeal. "It's OK to think outside the box," he said. "But you don't have to think that far out of the box." The Mentalist is a prime example. It is a crime-based procedural like CSI or Criminal Minds, but the core of the show is a quirky character for viewers to connect to. "The Mentalist is like us, but it's not like us," Moonves explained, and he doesn't pay attention to critics who say CBS relies too heavily on crime dramas. "Criminal Minds is a procedural, but it's as different from NCIS as it is from House," he said. "The audience will tell us when we've put on too many."

The original article is from TV Week.

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