Contacting CBS by the front door would probably be the least effective. They likely have a bunch of low paid employees who respond with a, “Thank you for your concerns. They will be forwarded to the appropriate party.” Which means I just deleted your e-mail or your letter has just been placed in the recycle bin.

If you want to reach someone with influence then you should contact the writers or CBS but writing on the Internet where everyone can give their two Cents is hardly going to be recognized by anyone with influence. Sure, someone could have a look but it’s more likely to reach them if you write them a letter or use the CBS Website form.

Right now I can’t watch NCIS if I wanted to. My work schedule interferes with watching live and I have yet to figure out how to record it on my VCR. I know haw to program the VCR but I got rid of my analog TVs and now I have an incompatibility issue. I think that I know how get around it but I haven’t tried it yet.

Yes,14 to 15 million is still a lot of viewers.but it is sad to see it go down hill like this. I have all of the dvds for seasons 1-11. I still watch them from time to time. Also, I doubt that any fans would stop watching the show because of my posts. People watch what they like. I have been hoping that maybe some of my complaints might reach someone who has some influence. Hope springs eternal. I now watch NCIS-LA, Scorpion and a lot of British stuff on Acorn.

14 or 15 million viewers are still more than most shows will ever have. If CBS wasn’t happy with those numbers they would have cancelled the show already but they didn’t. There might be some Drops in the numbers but again, you cannot give the reason. We all could assume but people have different reasons. I personally don’t care much about numbers or Ratings about any show that I watch. If I like a show I watch it and if I don’t like it then I don’t watch. But if I’m unhappy with a show, or if I see more things that I don’t like on a show than things that I like then I simply change the channel and just leave it behind instead of going to places where I know that fans get Infos or Spoilers about given show. And I wouldn’t even are to constantly try to dismiss their happieness or discussions with my own negativity.

Oh, I understood what you were saying. The survey of the facebook fans was not a scientific survey. What I’m saying is that CBS did the survey and then published the results. Why they did it, I don’t know. They must have thought that there was some value to their survey. What I’m pointing out is that the survey showed, for what it’s worth, that out of the top 10 episodes they listed Gibbs was not prominently featured. In fact, the two highest rated episodes by the facebook fan survey.were episodes that Michael Weathery had a major role.

NCIS is still the most watched TV drama. However, whether you look at Live viewership or Live +7, it’s ratings are slipping. No matter which numbers you look at, season 10 viewership is higher than seasons 11, 12 or 13 (through episode 15) For example,

season 9 19.23 mil 22.37 mil
season 10 19.28 mil (+50,000) 22.714 mil (+343,000)
season 11 18.5 mil (-780.000) 22.385 mil (-329,000)
season 12 17.23 mil (-1,27 mil) 21.184 mil (-1.21 mil)
season 13 17.02 mil (-210,000) 20.982 mil (-201,000)
(season 13 live through ep. 15, live +7 through ep.13)

Season 12 showed the biggest drop, about 1.2 million per episode or about 29 million for the year, Season 13 will soon be into the spring time slide. The most viewed episode is usually around episode 10-13. After that, the viewership slides down hill to the lowest numbers of the season. This season could be different because some fans may continue watching to catch the last of Michael Weatherly. If the usual happens then the viewership could drop down to about 14 or 15 million for some episodes.

I demaning CBS to do another Survey. I was trying to make a point for you to understand but from your comment, I don’t think you did.
It’s hard to see a problem with 17 million live viewers when other shows can’t even reach half of them. Times have changed and to simply assume that people didn’t watch live because in their opinion the show now sucks is childish. Could it be? Sure but there could be a thousand other, different reasons. And please, do not mention to me how certain episodes about a certain female character brought the highest Ratings. If people would have been really impressed with the focus on her and her acting performance, they would have come back for the next episode but they obviously decided not to. I wonder why? Could be thousand of reasons…

Surveys are rarely taken where they can reach each member of the group that they are trying to measure. It would be too expensive and time consuming. Surveys are done by what is called a representative sample. It is a careful selection of individuals who represent the larger group you are trying to find out about. I you want to know which foods you could introduce in the school cafeteria and there is only 1000 students at the school, a survey could be attempted to reach every single student in the school. If you want to know what toothpaste is the most popular in the USA, it would be almost impossible to contact every single person in the country. An unbiased sample of about 1,000-2,000 representative people will actually do quite nicely and . The results will be surprisingly close to the actual numbers you want. Your statement about having to survey everyone would send the nice people at Nielsen into uncontrollable laughter.

As for opinion, you are correct. Last Tuesday approximately 17 million people watched NCIS live. In their opinion, it was the best utilization of their time from 8:00-9:00 pm. The rest of the people in the country in their opinion either thought that it was better to watch something else or for the majority of the people in the county do something other than watch television. This is opinion and it’s consequences in action. Opinions do matter.

You do know that all of the things you mentioned are a matter of what each viewer sees individually, right? It’s your opinion that the humor got lost, it is your opinion that the romance should be part of the show. Each viewer has their own wishes and opinions and it is simply impossible to please everyone. I don’t think that the characters need a significant others or romances to be interesting. I don’t know why you would say that CBS doesn’t want to pay other actors to appear every now and then. They did it with quite a bunch of recuring characters through the seasons and they do have to pay their Weekly guest stars as well. A lot of actors are busy with other projects so they’re not always available. It’s not always about the money and as I said, NCIS isn’t the only CBS show.
Tony has had his share of screentime and storylines in the past 13 seasons. I’m not his biggest fan either but past-Ziva Tony has become my favorite because he was finally working with a new agent who wants to learn from him. He’s not being used for anyone else’s breakdowns. He’s not being betrayed and used anymore and he does his job and takes his life more serious but still brings his Humor to the show. That’s my opinion and I honestly can’t see how anyone can claim to be his fan and constantly say he’s not being used properly on the show. In the years with Ziva he was used to make her look better.
I never said that you had any Control over the Survey. I just pointed out that a Survey that didn’t include each single viewer isn’t worth much and does not represent the opinion of the entire fandom.

That is not what I said. What I said is that if you want to continue to be number one, you have to take care of the entire fan base. For some, what was important was the humor. Don’t throw out the humor.

For other fans, particularly the women, it was the romance. The romance was not just Tiva. It was Gibbs and Colonel Hollis Mann or one of his other sweeties. It was, at first, Abby and McGee. It was all of the romance that we actually saw on screen. Gibbs hasn’t had a sweetie in years. Tony, McGee and Abby recently had sweeties but we rarely saw them. Don’t throw out the romance.

I understand why CBS doesn’t want to show interactions with significant other.s If you show them on the screen, not a flashback, you have to
pay them. Harmon is now making a boatload of money as an actor on the show. John Cryer is supposedly one of the highest paid actors on TV. Every time we see him a big check is cut.

It was also individual characters. Tony has been standing around without much to do for about two years. While I am not a huge Tony fan, I understand his fans’ frustration.

As for the survey, I had no control over how it was done. That was the doings of CBS. It certainly was done on the cheap. It baffles me though why they would want to give the impression that some of the best episodes were the ones that featured Michael Weatherly. Since, as you say, this show is the Gibbs show why let fans say that they preferred the much fewer episodes where Michael Weatherly is front and center? I’ve got some ideas but I’ve already blathered on enough.

Neither Ziva nor Gibbs were/are my favorites but I rather watch the Gibbs show because 1. Harmon can act and convince me as a viewer. 2. The other characters are not going to be insulted/threatened or physically abused as they were with Ziva (especially Tony). Tony doesn’t need the treatment that McGee and Bishop still need. Yes, McGee has grown a lot but he still isn’t ready to 100% and Bishop will take more experience to get there. Tony doesn’t need to get ready. He’s ready so it makes sense for Gibbs to focus more on those who still need to learn more. And if I remember correctly, the screentime back then was maybe more, but he was usually treated horrible and I would rather have not seen Ziva insulting or abusing him. Gibbs respects Tony and he pushes him not to learn or anything. He wants Tony to see his own potential and Tony needs to figure out what he wants. It was easy to see in this season’s earlier episodes. Would I prefer to see more Gibbs/Tony scenes? Probably yes but we don’t know what’s going to happen. It was made clear that Michael told them when they started to shoot this season that he will be leaving so you can’t say if the ups and downs between Gibbs and Tony are going to be a part of Tony leaving.