THURSDAY
CRAIG:
SHILO:
ACTUAL SCHEDULE: 8:00 The Big Bang Theory; 8:30 Young Sheldon; 9:00 Mom; 9:30 Murphy Brown; 10:00 SWAT
CRAIG: It looks like CBS is “Must See’-ing it more than NBC is. A strong first hour and pretty strong hours to follow. It’s a little surprising that Murphy Brown has the 9:30 spot, but in a way it’s pretty genius as, if it does well, that audience will hopefully not change the channel and SWAT would benefit. With SWAT growing, the affiliates airing news will be even happier. Winning all around.
SHILO: I’m a fan of them keeping Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon together. There’s so much synergy there that they’d have definitely given up some ground trying to launch something new at 8:30. This way, I think Sheldon will be groomed for the 8:00 slot until Big Bang decides to conclude, which feels like the right move. The 9:00 hour, though, I find curious. As much as I enjoy Mom, why is CBS using the strength of Young Sheldon on an old show they don’t own? Mom has demonstrated that it has the strength to go without a big lead-in and if CBS were seriously interested in rebuilding its comedy slate, they would have launched something new at 9:00 vs. consolidating its resources. And I have to wonder what the point of bringing Murphy Brown back at a :30 slot is since CBS could’ve easily renewed, say, Superior Donuts, which was a comedy they owned that acted as a good retainer of any halfway decent lead-in it was granted. You make a good point about Murphy maybe helping SWAT and I get that A) the comedy it’s most compatible with is Mom and B) it might not have the upside that Roseanne and Will & Grace did, at least in the demo. But it’s hard for me to be enthused here when the Monday hour is already on borrowed time due to some preventable scheduling.
