Update: I favor Julia's theory in the comments below that this move is really about keeping Cold Case in primetime on a night where CBS anticipates some schedule delays due to overrun from having the national broadcast of the late afternoon NFL game on Sunday.
James Hibberd reports that CBS will be doing an experiment next Sunday moving Cold Case to 9pm and Three Rivers to 10pm to see if it improves either or both shows' ratings.
Hibberd also reports that CBS is still considering both ordering new scripts for Three Rivers, as well as ordering new episodes (5) and could be waiting to see the finals from Sunday before making a decision after Three Rivers hit season highs in the preliminary numbers.
Clearly CBS is attempting to learn something. But whether it is that Cold Case's ratings are or are not due to the Three Rivers lead-in or merely finding out whether Cold Case fares better against Desperate Housewives than Three Rivers, potentially improving both, or whether CBS just wants to be able to say "hey, see, we tried Three Rivers when it wasn't against Desperate Housewives so don't say we didn't try..." (update: Desperate Housewives isn't even on next week. ABC will be airing the "American Music Awards").
Not going to help either show.
I take this as the first move towards cancellation for Three Rivers. If Cold Case improves the time slot at all I expect we’ll see news of CBS not ordering a back 9 for 3R pretty soon after that.
Both shows are going to be opposite football and The American Music Awards next week. What’s the point?
How well do we expect CBS to advertise this switch? I’m thinking both shows could take a hit, and then both exit after this season.
I have to agree Tommy on this
true enough. Plus Sunday CBS has the national NFL late afternoon game that means all of primetime will likely be pushed back by at least 20 minutes for CBS, with none of the shows starting on the hour as they otherwise would’ve.
So Robert what good is this time switch really gonna do for Three Rivers & Cold Case when we know everything on CBS won’t start on time to begin with because of the late afternoon NFL game ? Not to mention Football on the other stations and the American Music Awards that night.
I’m going to go with the last guess. “hey, see, we tried Three Rivers when it wasn’t against Desperate Housewives so don’t say we didn’t try…”
Both shows are dead as doornails.
I’m guessing it has more to do with wanting to keep Cold Case in primetime, and letting Three Rivers go into the 11 pm hour, or even be pulled for the week if the game goes over too much. But they get to do a little experimentation at the same time.
At least CBS try, whereas you have other networks that just cancel shows at point blanc range without at least trying to tamper with them a bit to give them the success they deserve aka Eastwick on ABC.
I’m in the same mind that CBS are using this experiment is to help Cold Case than Three Rivers, when you consider that Cold Case builds on Three Rivers then TR is a dead duck especially if there is an overrun next week. Both shows go on hiatus the week after for Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Wonder if CBS will do the same for The Mentalist and CSI?
NBC: Football(appeals to men) Does Well
Fox: Football lead in to male targeted line up. Does Well
ABC: Woman Focused Counter programming to football. Does Well, particulalry Greys.
CBS: Football lead in to female skewing procedurals? Doesn’t do well. Doesn’t take a genius to figure it out.
we all know this show is not gonna be a hit in the ratings
cancel this show already!
gee…
whitney houston on the american music awards…
or…
another exciting three rivers…
hmmmmmmm….
what will i do?
American Music Awards! lol
Is there a choice to just turn off the TV?
Love Three Rivers; the cast is great! Please do not cancel this show. Try another night other than Sunday!Sunday November 15 episode was wonderful, I actually cried it was so touching. I’d like to see Alex O’Loughlin actually have another hit show; “Moonlight” was great but CBS canceled the show. I blame the writers strike for poor ratings. I never thought about being a donor, but after watching Three Rivers, I’m certainly thinking about changing my mind. Give the show a chance and stop being so quick to pull the plug on a great new show. Each week it gets better and better.
Now about not having football on that night, that’s what screwing up the lineup. It’s pathetic, can’t CBS Have a seperate channel for just the games? Why even have the shows on at all, if the games are just going to run over.
Cold Case did better at 9pm, who cares about Three Rivers the show is just going to be cancelled. I rather see Cold Case being renened for one more season.
three rivers is cbs’ dollhouse project
Sherri, where else besides Sundays would you put it? Mon-Fri Won’t be happening – why replace a ratings winner with a loser on any other night. (everything that’s on Mon-Thurs night beats it in the demo) And the Friday night shows come very close, if they don’t out right beat it! So that leaves Saturday, which if you think that 3R will do better on Saturdays then Sundays good luck!