The War of 18-49, CSI: Miami

CSI: MIAMI (CBS)

Scheduling history: CSI: Miami aired all of its first 191 episodes to on Monday night except for one, the second half of a two-night special on Tuesday, 4/1/08. In 2010-11, CBS aired something else in its 10:00 hour for the first time in nine years: newbie Hawaii Five-0. Meanwhile, Miami headed to Sunday nights, where it aired for the last two seasons.

See (who saw) how it all began: CSI: Miami premiered with 23.10 million total viewers and an 8.6/21 in the demo on 9/23/02. That total audience remains the biggest in series history, while the demo is tied for second highest. The show dropped a fairly big amount the next two weeks, to a (preliminary) 7.4 and then to a 6.3, but then it jumped back to a 7.3 in week 4 and would stay in the 6's and low 7's for most of season 1.

The best of times: The two CSI: Miami seasons to average a 7.0 demo or higher were the second and third, which were the two years that the show had new comedy success Two and a Half Men as a lead-in. That may not be a coincidence, but it's worth noting that for most of its run, CSI: Miami has rated higher than the comedies in the 9:00 hour. The series high was a 9.0 demo for the penultimate episode of season 2 on 5/17/04, although it was season 3 that was probably the strongest overall; eight of the show's 11 episodes to break an 8.0 were in that season.

The worst of times: The year after losing the Men lead-in, the show dropped to its lowest average yet, and the show would continue to hit new lows in each season thereafter. It dropped another 10% even though in The Big Bang Theory there was a comedy lead-in at 9:30 putting up far and away the best numbers since the mid-aughts. It only got worse after the move to Sunday, as Miami lost another third of its audience and even dropped below the 2.0 threshold on five occasions in the last two seasons. The series low was a 1.7 demo for the series finale on 4/8/12, though that episode was so low mostly because of the 10:51 start time.

Then vs. now: By season 8, CSI: Miami had dropped more than half of the average from its peak days, and that performance got CBS thinking that they can do better in the hour. Whether they actually achieved that with Hawaii Five-0 is up for debate, but Miami didn't transition to Sunday well. It's historically a really tough hour on CBS because it often runs well out of primetime due to NFL overruns, but Miami achieved only modest gains on the weak year-ago numbers from Cold Case. It didn't drop a ton in the final season, but the show still lost out on what looks like the final spot on CBS' fall 2012 sked, as the network chose CSI: NY for that honor instead.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Timeslot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	2002-03	Monday 10:00	6.77		5.4	8.6	detail
2	2003-04		6.98	+3%	5.8	9.0	detail
3	2004-05		7.47	+7%	6.5	8.6	detail
4	2005-06		6.36	-15%	5.3	7.0	detail
5	2006-07		5.61	-12%	4.7	6.5	detail
6	2007-08		4.42	-21%	3.9	4.9	detail
7	2008-09		3.98	-10%	3.3	5.2	detail
8	2009-10		3.59	-10%	2.7	4.3	detail
9	2010-11	Sunday 10:00	2.41	-33%	1.8	3.2	detail	D
10	2011-12		2.14	-11%	1.7	2.6	detail	C+

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now15	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	2002-03	153	big hit	2.57		122	194	194	174
2	2003-04	172	big hit	2.89	+12%	143	222	146	200
3	2004-05	183	big hit	3.08	+6%	159	211	199	179
4	2005-06	157	big hit	2.63	-15%	131	172	165	167
5	2006-07	149	hit	2.51	-5%	125	173	154	141
6	2007-08	134	hit	2.25	-10%	118	148	139	136
7	2008-09	132	hit	2.23	-1%	110	173	173	126
8	2009-10	127	hit	2.14	-4%	96	153	153	117
9	2010-11	95	marginal	1.59	-26%	71	126	126	79
10	2011-12	90	marginal	1.52	-5%	72	110	97	72
AVERAGE:		139	hit
CAREER:		1393	star

For more on The War of 18-49, my look at the history of primetime TV's veteran shows, see the Index.