The Breakdown: CBS Tuesday in 2025-26 (NCIS, NCIS: Origins, NCIS: Sydney and more!)

It's time for a journey through the CBS Tuesday schedule in 2025-26...


fall

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2024-25	FBI		FBI	FBI: International		FBI: International	FBI: Most Wanted		FBI: Most Wanted	106
	2024-25	123		123	100		100	95			95	106
2025-26	NCIS		NCIS	NCIS: Origins		NCIS: Origins	NCIS: Sydney		NCIS: Sydney	77 (-27%)
	2025-26	107 (-13%)		106.851323382812	75 (-25%)		75 (-25%)	50 (-48%)			50 (-48%)	77.1372741906053
VsAvg	-14%		-0.138113279306356	-28%		-0.283951249255571	-43%		-0.4317946207778	-27%
Rank	19/27		19/27	22/27		22/27	26/27		26/27	25/27

Like on Monday, CBS got some rotten early returns from its FBI/NCIS flip on Tuesday as well. NCIS trailed the FBI mothership noticeably at 8/7c, but the real discrepancy was in the spin-offs, as Origins was much farther behind FBI: International and Australian co-production Sydney was barely half of Most Wanted.

winter

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2024-25	FBI		FBI	FBI: International		FBI: International	FBI: Most Wanted		FBI: Most Wanted	108
	2024-25	123		123	103		103	98			98	108
2025-26	Harlan Coben's Final Twist		Harlan Coben's Final Twist	NCIS (R)		NCIS (R)	NCIS: Origins (R)		NCIS: Origins (R)	44 (-59%)
	2025-26	58 (-53%)		57.5995415110472	41 (-60%)		41 (-60%)	34 (-65%)			34 (-65%)	44.2431260881956
VsAvg	-52%		-0.520474590090236	-60%		-0.598929091904078	-61%		-0.607441770712418	-57%
Rank	27/27		27/27	27/27		27/27	27/27		27/27	27/27

The NCIS trio didn't return until the week before DST due to the Olympics, so we're rolling with the filler that took up most of the winter period here.

spring

Year	8:00	8:30	9:00	9:30	10:00	10:30	Avg
2024-25	FBI		FBI	FBI: International		FBI: International	FBI: Most Wanted		FBI: Most Wanted	100
	2024-25	115		115	96		96	89			89	100
2025-26	NCIS		NCIS	NCIS: Origins		NCIS: Origins	NCIS: Sydney		NCIS: Sydney	78 (-22%)
	2025-26	105 (-9%)		104.847861069384	75 (-21%)		75 (-21%)	54 (-39%)			54 (-39%)	78.0855620184116
VsAvg	-4%		-0.0364229240833381	-22%		-0.220556499626947	-34%		-0.339009515988405	-18%
Rank	17/27		17/27	21/27		21/27	27/27		27/27	20/27

The trends got a bit better for the NCIS trio in their spring returns, but it was not nearly as much improvement as CBS saw with the post-football Mondays.

Rating the Ratings (about grades)

Name	Lo	Avg	Hi	y2y	Plus	Label	Plusy2y	Results
NCIS*	0.3	0.32	0.4	-10%	105	solid	-5%	detail
Harlan Coben's Final Twist	0.1	0.16	0.2		55	flop
NCIS: Origins	0.2	0.23	0.4	-16%	77	marginal	-11%	detail
NCIS: Sydney	0.1	0.16	0.2	-39%	52	flop	-35%	detail

NCIS: I was sort of kind to FBI moving into the Monday lions' den so I have to be a bit harsher for NCIS. The y2y trend looks fine but this is just a better timeslot than Monday 9/8c. NCIS was still in hit territory the last time it aired on this night five years ago. That's not to say all of that decline happened this one season, but even grading on a bit of a CBS curve I can only get to Grade: C+.

NCIS: Origins: Like with the mothership, the y2y trend isn't that bad, but it was at 10/9c last year and the timeslot comparisons vs. FBI: International are ugly. Grade: C.

NCIS: Sydney: The only one of the trio that had a timeslot downgrade, as it was coming from Friday at 8/7c a year ago. In fact, this was the first season we saw it somewhere other than 8/7c, and it looked like the pandemic filler it was always supposed to be. It's getting kicked to midseason in 2026-27 as NCIS: New York takes the post-mothership role and Origins returns to 10/9c. Grade: C-.

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 Tuesday: 2015-16 | 2016-17 | 2017-18 | 2018-19 | 2019-20 | 2020-21 | 2021-22 | 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25

Here's the now updated Schedules Plus for CBS Tuesday.