It's time for a journey through the CBS Friday schedule in 2024-25...
fall
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | Let's Make a Deal Primetime | Raid the Cage | Blue Bloods (R) | 58 | |||
| 65 | 63 | 45 | |||||
| 2024-25 | S.W.A.T. | Fire Country | Blue Bloods | 97 (+68%) | |||
| 95 (+47%) | 105 (+66%) | 91 (+103%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +32% | +43% | +24% | +33% | |||
| Rank | 2/26 | 1/26 | 3/26 | 3/26 | |||
The Friday night lineup from the last two seasons returned to the fall. Fire Country kicked
off a season in which it was above the league average in all three
sections, and slightly outrated the fall from its first season two years
ago. S.W.A.T. and the final eight episodes of Blue Bloods were both down a bit from fall 2022.
winter
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | S.W.A.T. | Fire Country | Blue Bloods | 107 | |||
| 111 | 117 | 95 | |||||
| 2024-25 | NCIS: Sydney | Fire Country | S.W.A.T. | 90 (-16%) | |||
| 85 (-23%) | 102 (-12%) | 83 (-13%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +14% | +34% | +8% | +19% | |||
| Rank | 6/26 | 3/26 | 10/26 | 4/26 | |||
Yet another scripted lineup posted bad y2y numbers in the winter,
compared against last season's premieres. Even accounting for that,
though, NCIS: Sydney was a step below S.W.A.T.'s very strong run in the 8/7c hour, while S.W.A.T. took a dip in a midseason move to 10/9c.
spring
| Year | 8:00 | 8:30 | 9:00 | 9:30 | 10:00 | 10:30 | Avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-24 | S.W.A.T. | Fire Country | Blue Bloods | 87 | |||
| 88 | 95 | 78 | |||||
| 2024-25 | NCIS: Sydney | Fire Country | S.W.A.T. | 87 (+0%) | |||
| 76 (-13%) | 105 (+10%) | 79 (+2%) | |||||
| VsAvg | +24% | +60% | +12% | +32% | |||
| Rank | 6/26 | 1/26 | 7/26 | 1/26 | |||
Fire Country and S.W.A.T. both held up well in the spring, actually pulling ahead of the year-ago occupants. S.W.A.T. was only down 10%ish vs. what it did at 8/7c last spring.
Rating the Ratings (about grades)
| Name | Lo | Avg | Hi | y2y | Plus | Label | Plusy2y | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NCIS: Sydney | 0.2 | 0.26 | 0.3 | -25% | 81 | hit(Fri) | -10% | detail |
| Fire Country | 0.2 | 0.33 | 0.4 | -14% | 104 | hit(Fri) | +2% | detail |
| S.W.A.T.* | 0.1 | 0.27 | 0.3 | -26% | 84 | hit(Fri) | -12% | detail |
| Blue Bloods* | 0.2 | 0.29 | 0.3 | -8% | 91 | hit(Fri) | +9% | detail |
NCIS: Sydney: There's no question it was weaker than S.W.A.T. in this hour, but it basically looked like a typical season of MacGyver, which used to be the gold standard on this night. CBS Friday is such a juggernaut that it's rewritten the rules on getting moved to Friday, but dropping just 10% in a move from Tuesday seems fine. Next year, though, it's back to Tuesday and will have to take on the 10/9c hour as part of a triple-NCIS night. Grade: B-.
Fire Country: Make it three above-league average seasons on Friday night for Fire Country, just one shy of SVU's four-season run at the beginning of the Plus era. This season was a teeny bit higher rated than the other two (each 102) but it may have benefited from returning to the fall so I'll go Grade: B+. Spin-off Sheriff Country joins the night next season.
S.W.A.T.: Impressive as this show was in staving off cancellation twice, it didn't happen a third time. It showed some signs of minor decline, with the fall ratings being a bit behind two years ago. And while a drop was expected in the return to 10/9c, the retention wasn't amazing and it wasn't as strong as the last time it aired at 10/9c (on Sundays) a couple years ago. The S.W.A.T.-verse will continue with Shemar Moore-led spin-off S.W.A.T. Exiles, but that's likely headed for a streamer somewhere. Grade: B-.
Blue Bloods: Like S.W.A.T., it was a bit behind its last fall run two years ago. It's still one of the show's stronger fall runs historically, but it's a bit inflated as a "season" (it was technically part of the last season) because it avoided the spring which is often rough for this show. CBS will be out of the Blue Bloods universe in this hour for all of ten months, turning it back over to Donnie Wahlberg and Boston Blue this October. Grade: B-.
The names in this last table link to the shows' War of 18-49 pages. Links with an asterisk(*) have been updated with the new info. Updates to younger shows will come later in the summer.
Previous Breakdowns for CBS Friday: 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24
Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for CBS Friday.
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