This season, CBS moved The Mentalist from Thursdays to Sunday nights, into (cancelled) CSI: Miami’s former timeslot. This move understandably made fans very nervous.
The Mentalist’s ratings have taken a serious hit this season. The premiere represented one of the worst showings in the series’ history and the numbers for subsequent episodes have dropped even lower.
CBS will surely take football over-runs into consideration when considering the show’s fate but it’s worth noting that CSI: Miami’s ratings were also impacted by football — and performed better. In its last season, Miami averaged a 2.1 rating with 9.85 million. That’s significantly better than The Mentalist’s current season average below.
What do you think? Will The Mentalist be cancelled this season? Share your comments below.
Here are the CBS season averages as of Thursday, November 8, 2012:
| CBS non-scripted TV shows |
18-49 demo rating (actual) |
Viewers in millions |
Ratings pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Survivor: Philippines | 2.9 (2.88) | 10.34 | cycle 25 ratings |
| 60 Minutes | 2.7 (2.67) | 13.73 | season 45 ratings |
| The Amazing Race | 2.6 (2.57) | 9.55 | cycle 21 ratings |
| Undercover Boss | 1.5 (1.50) | 7.96 | season 4 ratings |
| 48 Hours | 1.0 (0.96) | 4.67 | season 26 ratings |
These charts incorporate the daily final CBS show ratings (reported by Nielsen) and are sorted by the 18-49 demographic. Network advertisers typically prize those viewers most and so will pay more to reach them. There’s lots of information that the networks take into consideration when cancelling or renewing a TV series but the ratings are the biggest factor. The higher the ratings, the better chance that the show will be renewed. And yes, they take it into account when a show airs on a Friday or Saturday night.
For the status of your favorite CBS shows, check out this page.
Want more posts like this? Here are the other networks: ABC | The CW | FOX | NBC
I think it is a shame that you have taken The Mentalist off . I look so much forward to seeing this tv series every week. It is like a special time out for me to sit down and enjoy watching my favorite tv series. I am very sad that you have done this. Please reconsider putting it back on tv.
Not fair because it was always late coming on. Move it back to Thursday. how do you know how many watches it. I have never been polled.
The Mentalist is one of the more interesting shows on tv. If you wanted to commit suicide for the program, you jumped into a pit with the time slot change. I was not home on many of those nights and had to put up with the idiotic timing that you so stupidly arranged. Not only did I have to record The Good Wife before The Mentalist, I had to record The News after it… a total of 3 hours to maybe catch a full episode of The Mentalist in the middle. If you’re going to cancel something, cancel the jerk… Read more »
I am begging you not to cancel the mentalist.
Please do not cancel the Mentalist, it is may & my friends favorite show.
It should not go off the air. I think it was totally unfair to both the viewers and the program itself when it got placed into a new time slot. Please keep Simon Baker and crew on the air.