CBS

Nine months after Magnum P.I. got a surprising cancellation, the Hawaiian crime drama debuts on a new network Feb. 19. Magnum, with Jay Hernandez in the private eye role, was canceled by CBS last May, and promptly scooped up by NBC. It is rare that a show changes networks, and the Magnum brain trust is confident the shift is a favorable one.

CBS has ordered pilots for a new iteration of Matlock starring Kathy Bates and a spinoff of The Good Wife starring Carrie Preston. The Good Wife spinoff is titled Elsbeth, named after Preston’s character Elsbeth Tascioni whom she played on both The Good Wife and streaming series The Good Fight.

Paramount Global will provide FuboTV with a CBS network feed — stripped of local programming — to stream in markets where CBS affiliates turned down a distribution fee deal negotiated by the network. According to a confidential memo sent to affiliates by the CBS affiliate board, CBS set a 5 p.m. Friday (Jan. 27) deadline for stations to opt in or out of the deal. In markets where stations opt out, their programming will be replaced with the network feed on Fubo effective today at 5 p.m. The national feed, including sports and primetime shows, with use content from the CBS News Streaming Network to replace a station’s local programming including local newscasts, CBS said. The new deal would run until after CBS airs the Super Bowl in 2024.

Although most of the canceled TV show headlines of late have been focused on the big streamers, attention will soon shift to the beleaguered Big 5 broadcasters as the May upfronts draw closer. Many in-limbo shows on the 2023 Renewal Scorecard are a lock to return, but there are a handful of high-profile series on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC and The CW that remain very much on the bubble.

Bob ♥ Abishola is the fourth top CBS comedy to be renewed for next season, joining Young Sheldon, Ghosts and The Neighborhood. In its fourth season, Bob ♥ Abishola is averaging 5.99 million viewers in its Monday 8:30 p.m. time period. With Live+35 day multiplatform viewing, the series increases to more 6.9 million viewers. It is also TV’s No. 2 comedy among African American viewers.

The show is currently filming its 100th episode, which will air later this season. The Neighborhood is the second longest-running current comedy on CBS, behind Young Sheldon.

Deborah Barak, one of the most prominent, influential and beloved TV business executives of the past three decades, died today, Jan. 21, after a long battle with cancer. She was 65. Barak’s passing comes just two years after she left CBS at the end of 2020. During her 35 years at the company, rising to president of business operations, she created deal templates and introduced business models that have since become industry standards. A skilled negotiator who was highly respected by her peers, Barak — known to all as Debby — led the network’s and studio’s highest-profile negotiations. She brokered a slew of mega talent and show deals while always keeping her cool under pressure in the most chaotic situations.

One of CBS’s longest-running scripted shows, NCIS: Los Angeles, will be coming to an end after 322 episodes. Its current 14th season will be the show’s last, with the series finale set for May 14, airing on the network and streaming live and on demand on Paramount+. The NCIS spinoff, starring LL Cool J and Chris O’Donnell, is tied as the fifth longest-running CBS primetime scripted series ever, behind only Gunsmoke, Lassie, CSI and Criminal Minds.

CBS’s hit comedy Ghosts will be back for a third go-round. The network has handed a Season 3 renewal to the remake of the BBC comedy, starring Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar, for premiere in the 2023-24 broadcast season. Ghosts moved from 9 p.m. to its current 8:30 Thursday night time slot in its current second season, a shift that has seen its audience grow to an average of 9.15 million viewers, up 15% from its premiere season. It’s up 61% in its time period, and is ranking as television’s top comedy in seven-day playback.

Bernard Kalb worked as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, CBS and NBC, wrote two books with his more famous younger brother, Marvin, and served as founding anchor and panelist for the CNN media analysis show Reliable Sources. Always smartly dressed in a suit and orange tie often matched by an orange pocket handkerchief, Kalb was a tireless journalist who made virtually every overseas trip with five different secretaries of state before switching to the other side of the podium.

Since its premiere on Oct. 7, Fire Country has averaged 8 million viewers per episode, making it the top new broadcast series of the season. With live +35-day multiplatform viewing, more than 10 million viewers an episode have watched the procedural across linear and streaming platforms.

Paramount Global’s CBS is about to start listing its programs on a start-up service that aims to match TV programs with marketers eager to launch campaigns that use the shows to gain attention. Imagine a regional fast-food chain or a start-up online retailer — not to mention a big national consumer-goods manufacturer — being able to incorporate characters from “Young Sheldon” or the logo of “NCIS” to capture the attention of new customers. The idea is to unlock the ability of advertisers “to hook up with programs,” says Alan Gould, a co-founder of the new exchange, MutualMarkets.

Now that your broadcast-TV favorites are on holiday break, TVLine is looking at how each network’s shows are stacking up thus far in the 2022-23 TV season — here’s well-watched CBS.

Old schoolers like the late Gil Schwartz of CBS used to hate it when the press would commandeer executive sessions at TCA in the aughts with questions about the death of broadcast TV. HBO had come to dominate the Emmys year after year and the perception was that programming on the Big Three just wasn’t sexy, no matter how much Schwartz would argue that the size of CBS’ audience was far more valuable than the trophies it never seemed to collect at the Shrine Auditorium. Looking back, the fact that anyone was defending broadcast TV seems positively quaint these days.

Frank Shakespeare, who was a station manager and CBS executive before holding an influential position in the Richard Nixon administration and working in global politics, died Dec. 14 at age 97. In 1957 he became GM of  WCBS New York and presented what was considered the first television editorial on local affairs, a critique of off-track betting.

Beauty and the Beast averaged 4 million total viewers and a 0.7 demo rating, after which The Parent Test retained 1.9 mil and a 0.4. Ghosts‘ hour-long Christmas episode averaged 6.8 million viewers and a 0.6 rating, eyeing its best audience ever and matching its season high in the demo.

Gayle King was asked on Thursday’s Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen for her thoughts about the situation at ABC’s GMA3, in which co-hosts Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes where at least temporarily pulled from hosting duties after their romantic relationship was made public. “It’s just gotten very messy and very sloppy,” she said.

In the latest TV ratings, the NBC TV-movie Dolly Parton’s Mountain Magic Christmas dominated a quiet-ish Thursday in total viewers (with 6 million) and is currently tied for the nightly demo win (with a 0.5 rating). Leading out of that, a holiday edition of The Wall retained just 2.1 mil and a 0.2.

The two outlets stand well ahead of their competitors in terms of time spent with original programming.

Kim, an 11-year CBS veteran, fills the void created by the promotion of Amy Reisenbach. Reisenbach this month was upped to entertainment president at CBS, replacing the ousted Kelly Kahl after the exec, who spent nearly 30 years at CBS, was ousted in a cost-cutting move.

Scott Grogin, EVP communications at the broadcaster, is set to leave CBS after six years there. His departure will follow that of CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl, who is exiting after 26 years at the network, the past five as head of the entertainment division.

Co-hosted by The Talk’s Sheryl Underwood and Taye Diggs, the Nov. 26 two-hour event honors Dave Chappelle, Ben Crump, Allyson Felix, Jennifer Hudson, Patti LaBelle, Queen Latifah, Norman Lear, Alena Analeigh McQuarter, Don Peebles, Tyler Perry, Robert F. Smith and Kenan Thompson.

In January, the network will have a new programming chief, Amy Reisenbach, as insiders grapple with the biggest re-org in recent years.

In the latest TV show ratings, NBC’s Law & Order: SVU led Thursday both in total viewers and in the demo, while CBS’ Pickled proved to be a dead ball.

The changeover at the top of CBS’ entertainment operations continues. Thom Sherman is stepping down as SVP, programming, CBS Entertainment and is getting an expansive production deal with the company. The move follows the news earlier this morning that CBS veteran Kelly Kahl will be leaving his post as president of Entertainment at the end of the year.The network’s head of current Amy Reisenbach will be named new president of Entertainment.

CBS is the fourth broadcast network to reveal its midseason schedule (following ABC, Fox and NBC), which features the RuPaul-hosted game show Lingo and a series reboot of James Cameron’s 1994 action-comedy True Lies.

For the first time, CBS will air a special three-hour crossover event between NCIS, NCIS: Hawai’i and NCIS: Los Angeles this season. The all-night storyline is set for Monday, Jan. 2.

Rookie drama Fire Country got a big vote of confidence from CBS on Sunday, snagging the plum time slot behind January’s AFC Championship football game. The announcement was made during Sunday’s NFL match-up between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Los Angeles Rams.

The LAPD says it is conducting an internal affairs investigation into the former captain in charge of the Hollywood Division of the Los Angeles Police Department, Cory Palka, and the state attorney general is probing any criminal elements after a report said he conspired with CBS to conceal sexual assault allegations against former CBS chief Les Moonves, for whom Palka served as a private bodyguard for years.

The 2022-23 TV season has its first casualty. CBS’s dating show The Real Love Boat has been pulled from the broadcast network after four episodes. It will finish out its season on Paramount+.