Going into the fall season, CBS’ Vegas series was one of the new TV shows with the most buzz. Many people were expecting it to be one of the hits of the season. Has it measured up? Should it be cancelled or renewed for a second season?
Airing on Tuesday nights, Vegas takes place in the Las Vegas of the 1960s and revolves around Sheriff Ralph Lamb (Dennis Quaid), a former rancher, and his clashes with Vincent Savino (Michael Chiklis), a Chicago mobster who moved west to set up his operation. Others in the cast include Carrie-Anne Moss, Taylor Handley, Sarah Jones, and Jason O’Mara.
The show debuted back on September 25th to a 2.5 rating in the 18-49 demographic with 14.85 million total viewers. While the viewership was strong, CBS was likely expecting a much better demo number — especially considering the show’s high-profile talent, positive reviews, and the show having a strong lead-in like NCIS: Los Angeles.
In week two, the ratings dropped 20%, to a 2.0 rating with 12.11 million. In week four, they dropped another 20%, to a 1.6 rating with 10.8 million.
The numbers have remained fairly steady since then and the 15 episodes that have aired thus far have averaged a 1.7 demo rating with 10.9 million viewers.
While that demo might be enough for a show on NBC, it’s not likely good enough for CBS. Right now, Vegas is one of the network’s lowest-rated weekday series in the demographic which advertisers favor. Vegas has a lot of total viewers but so do many other CBS shows.
Last season, Unforgettable occupied the same timeslot and performed better than Vegas — averaging a 2.3 demo rating and 11.3 million viewers. It was cancelled.
The network ended up making a deal with Sony TV to bring Unforgettable back for a short season this summer and both sides likely made some financial concessions to make that happen. Word is that most of the supporting castmembers have been dropped. A deal like that is not likely to happen with Vegas.
Unless the ratings start to climb, it doesn’t look very likely that Vegas will be back for a second season.
On the positive side, the series will be back on March 19th and there are seven new episodes yet to come.
What do you think? Do you think CBS should cancel Vegas to make way for a new show? Or, should they renew Quaid and company for a second season? If you were running the network, would you change anything try to attract higher ratings?
Yes bring it back, it may not have got viewers in the beginning, took me awhile to find it and I loved it, bring it back PLEASE!!
BRING BACK VEGAS!!!!
Bring back The Shows VEGAS, And King and Maxwell
please bring back “vegas” i believe was a good show, especially what your putting on now.
Love Vegas, so very disappointed that it was cancelled. Watched every episode. Please bring it back!
Good clean show- great sound track and fantastic actors
As usual cancel a good series and keep trying to top it with something else CBS might end up like A&E firing Phil Robinson it kinda backfired on them if they would have cancelled Duck Dynasty I like a bunch of others would have Boycotted A&E.
Vegas was a great show and you had to cancel. Every time you get a new show that is really good somebody in CBS decides to kill it regardless of the public wanting it to continue.
If it wasn’t for NCIS and Blue Bloods and Molly you would not have an audience.
it seems that when ever a good tv show comes on, for some reason someone there with no clue what is good decides to cancel it. i truly think i’m going to cbs anymore. VEGAS was a good show and you ended it in a bad way. YOU didn’t give it decent chance…. shame on you.
VEGAS WAS A GOOD SHOW I WATCHED ALL OF THEM.I HAVE BEEN WAITING AND WAITING FOR THE NEW SEASON TO START NOW I GUESS THAT IS NOT HAPPENING.I HOPE CBS CHANGES IT MIND AND GIVES IT ANOTHER CHANCE.