NCIS season 15 ratings: What should expectations be for Mark Harmon, cast?

September 23, 2017

What are the NCIS season 15 ratings expectations? It’s an interesting subject of conversation for CBS, given that we know they value the show so highly. It’s been promoted as TV’s most-watched show for years, and we know that internationally it has more total viewers than any other program out there. For the sake of this article, though, we are writing solely about viewers in the United States and how the show can maintain more viewers than they have.

The first valuable thing worth doing within this article is presenting what is effectively a nice dose of reality. This is NCIS season 15, and it would be foolish to sit here and say that we anticipate the ratings to be anywhere similar this year to what we’ve seen from them in the past. That is just not going to happen, and it’s also silly to think that the show will maintain all of its season 14 audience, even though that in turn was down more than 10% in total viewers and down more than 20% in the key 18-49 demographic. Ratings fall in the DVR / streaming era. That’s just the reality of it at this point, and we see there being very little reason to think that things will change at this point.

So what should we expect then this season? Let’s break this down across the two key measurements.

In the demographic – The show averaged a 1.7 rating for the 14th season, but the episodic ratings were down closer to a 1.4 or so by the time the finale was close. For the time being, we wouldn’t be shocked to see the series pull in a 1.5 as more people look for either other programs or ways in which to consistently view NCIS. ratings tend to be higher in the fall than in the spring, but we could easily envision the show in 1.2 or 1.3 territory by around the time March or April rolls around.

In total viewers – In this measurement, the show averaged last season around 14.6 million. We do think that around 13.5 million is a fairly reasonable estimate when you think about similar trends. The good news when it comes to total viewers is that NCIS has fallen a little more slowly in this measurement than the demo; the flip side of this is that most networks care more about the demo than total viewers, so this may not be all that great of news for CBS.

What are some of your NCIS season 15 ratings expectations?

Be sure to sound off now in the attached comments! Meanwhile, head over to the link here in the event you do want to preview some other upcoming episodes this season! Remember to also like us on Facebook to get some additional TV updates. (Photo: CBS.)

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2 Comments

Janet Furcello
September 25, 2017 @ 1:33 am

The Nielsen 18-49 Ratings and viewer numbers for all US broadcast scripted shows has been decreasing for over 40 years as alternative non-broadcast and recording went up–since the “Gold Standard” for Advertisers is Live + overnight–the decline in actual numbers has accelerated with delay-watching,alternative streaming and binge-watching rising.In the 2012-2013 season there was 1 show in the 5.0s (Big Bang Theory) 1 in the 4.0s-4 shows in the 3.0s and 23 shows in the 2.0s!! Last season 2016-2017 Big Bang Theory was still #1 in 18-49 Ratings-but at 3.11–the ONLY show to break 3.0s–and only 2 shows in the 2.0s. Bearing that in mind-NCIS’s 1.72 keep it in the TopTen (38) of all broadcast scripted shows–I ‘ll speculate that NCIS will probably be around 1.5 at the end of the season and STILL be in the TopTen–because all other shows are experiencing the same factors—likewise with viewer numbers.Everyone has had drops from years ago–and NCIS STILL has more viewers tan anyone else–I expect them to retain that status! (P..S.-this season may very well find ZERO shows breaking 3.0!)
Lee
September 24, 2017 @ 9:46 am

Real life has distracted me from following the ratings for the 2nd half the season, but when I was last paying attention it seemed that the absolute numbers were pretty meaningless both in actual viewers and the demo.

Both have fallen off a cliff in relation to potential audience for a variety of reasons and the only real meaning in the figures now seems to be relative to other shows on the night and in the same week. Last time I looked NCIS was wiping the floor with most of its competition on the night and holding up pretty strong over the entire week. Even the re-runs were holding up strong against the competition. In the demo it seems rare for any show to beat a 2 now, although one or two dramatically bucked the trend.

Have Neilsen achieved anything in taking other metrics into consideration to create these figures yet?

That said, I think your predictions are realistic. It will be interesting to see how they stack up.

In addition to the age of the show, I think it has paid for having a stable cast for so many years – longer than the run of many shows – and once that stability was finally broken it’s been hard to maintain the continuity.