Why an NCIS: New Orleans season 5 will likely happen, per current numbers

Is it too early to discuss a possible NCIS: New Orleans season 5 on CBS? CarterMatt doesn’t think so and it’s for many different reasons.

For starters, let’s begin with what matters the most to CBS: ratings. Any show needs good ratings in order to succeed, and we are seeing that NCIS: New Orleans continues to bring in a pretty consistent audience.

Typically, you like to see that shows that retain more than 85% of their overall viewing audience year after year and they tend to be brought back for more seasons. You have to remember that in the world of network TV in 2017, the odds aren’t very high that you are going to see shows routinely improve their viewership — they are going to lose some. It’s inevitable. There is just so much programming on the air right now and so many different ways that people watch their shows. It makes tracking ratings a lot more difficult than in the past. We think there are a lot of viewers who would really dig in NCIS: New Orleans If they got a chance to check it out, but unfortunately many of them just aren’t able to.

Another mitigating factor in the show’s current ratings is that it still hasn’t really started making a big syndication push just yet, and it can’t reap many of its benefits as a result. What the series is retaining right now is based on the audience that it already has as opposed to viewers that it manages to gain along the way from repeats.

The good news with all of this information in mind is this: So far over the course of NCIS: New Orleans season 4, it is retaining more than 85% in both key measures. Year to year it is down 13% in the 18-49 demographic, which is the main one that a lot of networks choose to use these days for advertising purposes. However, we do tend to see that CBS cares more about older viewers and total viewers in general than most other networks. Here is the great news about that when it comes to NCIS: New Orleans: So far season 4 has only lost around 4% of it’s total viewership (on average) vs season 3. That is incredible, and it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about cable, broadcast, or some random people performing in the middle of the street. If you’re retaining that much of your audience year-to-year some executive in a big corporate office is doing a dance around a room. It is a very welcome sign for the show and it’s evidence that you have a good chance of coming back.

It also helps that NCIS: New Orleans is a show that’s getting very close to consistently winning its time slot week after week and in the demo. Law & Order True Crime has proven to be a bit of a ratings disappointment as of late and Kevin (Probably) Saves the World on ABC is doing about as well as we expected it to. By saying that, we mean it’s not doing well.

So, when could an NCIS: New Orleans season 5 renewal be ordered? You’re going to have to wait a little while on that. There is no reason for CBS to go ahead make that renewal official right now, mostly because of the fact that there are still a lot of stories to tell this season and plenty of time for the ratings to fluctuate a little bit. We do know this: Considering that the ratings stay what they are throughout the season, you may as well consider NCIS: New Orleans a lock to come back. It may be the lowest rated of the three NCIS shows on the air, but it definitely has a lot going for it despite airing in a rough time slot and at a time in general when people are going to bed.

Do you think that an NCIS: New Orleans season 5 renewal will happen? Sound off in the comments! Also, click here to preview the next episode!

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