Moonves Talks ‘CSI’ & ‘NCIS’ Franchise Expansion

Les Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation, recently spoke to World Screen about the network, and here’s a quote about the addition of NCIS: New Orleans and CSI: Cyber to the CBS lineup:

WS: The NCIS and CSI franchises have been expanded. How do you and your team decide when another show can be added to a franchise?

MOONVES: It’s really interesting. Both came about in different ways. NCIS is still the number one drama on television. It became self-evident that it would be a great idea to expand the franchise to another city while the original NCIS is doing phenomenally well. We have Gary Glasberg, who is the executive producer of NCIS, in charge of NCIS: New Orleans and it became a great opportunity. In the case of CSI: Cyber, it’s a very interesting story. It was an idea that was pitched to us about a particular character, and it really fit into the CSI franchise. It wasn’t our intent, per se, to look for another CSI. Instead, this idea came in and it fit perfectly for that franchise. Once again, both CSI and NCIS are selling extraordinarily well internationally and have a great deal of value, even after all these years. These are two different examples of how a franchise can expand, and we look forward to hopefully many more years of both of them.