CBS unveils 2025-26 lineup
Dominated by procedurals, the schedule features four comedies on the lineup
Despite winning the total viewership crown for the seventeenth consecutive season, the 2024-25 season has one to forget for CBS, which is battling President Trump over whether 60 Minutes defamed him, and the continued limbo the Paramount-Skydance deal is in as the FCC is continuing to investigate the matter.
But the show must go on, as CBS released its 2025-26 season schedule on Wednesday. And it features spin-offs of existing series, such as Blue Bloods, Fire Country, and FBI. This fall features five new series and three for midseason.
Mondays leads off with The Neighborhood in its swan song season, leading into single-camera comedy DMV, set in…where else? A DMV. That’s followed by the FBI shifting to the middle of primetime, followed by its spinoff CIA to close out the evening.
Tuesdays is NCIS night with the original recipe starting the evening, followed by NCIS: Origins and NCIS: Sydney moving over from Fridays, as the Australian import is continuing tariffs or no tariffs.
Wednesday has Survivor in its regular slot, but The Amazing Race will have a fall edition after sitting out last year to make room for The Summit, which was canceled after one season. In midseason, Wednesdays will be taken over by Hollywood Squares, Price Is Right At Night, and Harlan Coben’s Final Twist – a rare anthology series. Spring has Survivor’s 50th edition, followed by a new cooking series, America’s Culinary Cup, and a half-hour edition of Squares, marking a rare instance of an hour-long show starting on the half-hour – something that was common in the 1970s.
Thursday remains unchanged with Georgie & Mandy, Ghosts, Matlock, and Elsbeth.
Fridays have a new Fire Country spin-off, Sheriff Country, leading into it, with Blue Bloods spin-off Boston Blue closing out the evening.
Finally, Sunday starts off with 60 Minutes – unless President Trump signs an executive order forcing it off the air. That’s followed by hit crime drama Tracker, which drew the most viewers on linear TV this season.
The next hour in the fall features a country music competition, The Road, which should not be confused with a similar country-music themed show that the former Tribune Entertainment syndicated during the 1994-95 season. When that wraps up, new drama Y: Marshall, a spin-off of Yellowstone, and the first show from that franchise to air on network television. Watson returns in midseason to finish up the night in midseason, while procedural reruns fill the slot this fall.
With viewers watching anything on-demand these days, it makes competition between the broadcast networks…well, useless. But CBS does have a bead on what works for those who want familiarity, and boy, there is a lot of familiarity on the CBS lineup next season.
I know many viewers have been upset with CBS over the last few years when the network cancels still popular series to make room on the schedule for new programs. Yet when looking at their new schedule, CBS has two hours of programming on Saturday nights set aside for encore programming aka repeats. It’s too bad that the broadcast networks seem to have abandoned first-run scripted programming on Saturday nights, and it’s no wonder broadcast TV viewership continues to decline over the years. Their parent companies seem to focus too much on their streaming services. Let the networks develop and test new shows on their streaming services before moving them to broadcast television, where the programs have the potential to reach the broadest audience on free TV. One of the only positives that seems to have developed over the recent years is that the networks no longer commission dozens upon dozens of TV pilots, many of which never make it on the air. That always seemed like a huge waste of talent, time and money.