The Neighborhood, Magnum P.I. & God Friended Me Get CBS Full-Season Orders
CBS has handed back orders to three more freshman series, multi-camera comedy The Neighborhood and d..
CBS has handed back orders to three more freshman series, multi-camera comedy The Neighborhood and dramas Magnum P.I. and God Friended Me. The sizes of the pickups are not being revealed but I hear that The Neighborhoods order is around 9 episodes, which would bring its first season to a 22, and Magnum P.I. and God Friended Me have received pickups for about 7 more episodes.
The Neighborhood, Magnum P.I. and God Friended Me join fellow CBS freshman series FBI, which already has received a Back 9 order. The only remaining new fall CBS series that is yet to hear on additional episodes or scripts is comedy Happy Together, which has been a wobbly ratings performer so far. After facing criticism in the last few years, CBS this year bet on a fall slate of new series with all diverse/female leads that has yielded four full-season orders so far vs. 3 altogether last fall.
The Neighborhood, starring Cedric the Entertainer and Max Greenfield, has done a respectable job as a new Monday 8 PM anchor. It got off to a solid start with 8.1 million Live+same day viewers for the premiere and a 1.3 rating in adults 18-49. It slipped in Week 2 but remained stable in Week 3 and ranks as the highest-rated program on CBS Monday night. It averaged 8 million viewers and improved the 8 PM by +14% over Kevin Can Waits performance last fall.
The Neighborhood hails from Aaron Kaplans Kapital Entertainment and CBS TV Studios. Created by Jim Reynolds, in the show, Cedric the Entertainer stars as Calvin Butler, an opinionated neighbor, when Dave Johnson (Greenfield), the friendliest guy in the Midwest, moves his family to a neighborhood in Los Angeles where not everyone looks like him or appreciates his extreme neighborliness. Beth Behrs, Tichina Arnold, Sheaun McKinney, Marcel Spears and Hank Greenspan co-star. Reynolds executive produces with Kapitals Kaplan and Dana Honor as well as Kapital-based producer Wendi Trilling via her TrillTV and Cedric and Eric Rhone of A Bird And A Bear Entertainment.
The Magnum P.I. reboot, starring Jay Hernandez, got off to a modest ratings start given its pedigree. But its been stable in the adults 18-49 demo, improved the 9 PM hour by +50% over last seasons low-rated comedies, and is a title that sells well internationally, making money for co-producers CBS TV Studios and Universal TV.
Magnum P.I., which averages over nine million viewers a week, co-stars Perdita Weeks, Zachary Knighton, Stephen Hill, Tim Kang and Amy Hill. Peter Lenkov, Eric Guggenheim, Justin Lin, John Davis, John Fox and Danielle Woodrow are executive producers.
God Friended Me, from Warner Bros. TV, has been a solid Sunday addition, averaging over 10 million viewers and improving its time period +8% in viewers over last season. The series stars Brandon Micheal Hall, Violett Beane, Suraj Sharma, Javicia Leslie and Joe Morton. Steven Lilien, Bryan Wynbrandt, Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter and Marcos Siega are executive producers.
