CSI: Crime Scene Investigation was a cultural phenomenon that redefined the TV crime procedural
for the 21st century.
The show's first spinoff, CSI: Miami, resuscitated star David Caruso's career and was still pulling
in viewers when it was abruptly cancelled after 10 seasons in 2012.
And there’s only one way to find out what went wrong.
"What are you gonna do?"
"I...am gonna get to the truth."
Ratings Massacre
In the 2011-12 TV season, which would prove to be its last year on the air, CSI: Miami
ranked No. 27 out of all shows on broadcast TV.
Now that's pretty good…but not so good for CBS, the most-watched network.
It also represented a steady decline for the once-mighty crime drama.
In its debut season, CSI: Miami ranked No. 11, and then spent four years in the top 10
before starting an annual ratings slide.
Also not helping was its Sunday night timeslot: despite a lead-in from The Good Wife, CSI:
Miami got killed in the ratings by NBC's Sunday Night Football.
Cashing Out
The longer a show stays on the air, the more contracts for all cast and crew members have
to be renegotiated and re-signed, and various union laws require major pay raises for everyone
involved.
Sometimes, it's worth the production company and network's money—The Big Bang Theory,
for example, has a main cast that earns $1 million per episode as it enters its tenth
season.
But that's the exception to the rule.
Generally, the longer a show airs, their ratings decline—just like CSI: Miami.
That means a network is paying more money for a show fewer people watch, and it's just
not cost-effective.
"Verdict's already in."
"The verdict is in, Frank, but the jury is out."
Fleeing The Scene
Speaking of being cost effective, CBS has a long history of keeping shows on the air
because it's cheap to make them in pre-existing production facilities.
For example, in 1980, the Hawaii-set of Magnum, P.I. made it to air in part because the network
could use the studios and crew they'd had in the area for the production of the original
Hawaii Five-O since the 1960s.
In 2012, CBS had a string of New York-based cop shows in production, including CSI: New
York, Blue Bloods, and NYC-22, and wanted to present them all in a single three-hour
block on Friday nights.
With those shows all produced in and around New York, there wasn't room in either the
budget or the schedule for a show shot in the far-off, expensive city of Miami—or
worse.
"We're going to Brazil."
Stiff Competition
At the same time it canceled CSI: Miami, CBS renewed the other CSI spinoff on the air at
the time, CSI: New York.
And CSI: Miami had better overall ratings than its Gotham-based counterpart.
What gives?
Well, CSI: New York had helped turn the little-watched TV wasteland of Friday nights into a big draw
for CBS.
It brought in fewer viewers than CSI: Miami, but for Friday night it trailed only its lead-out,
Blue Bloods, in the ratings.
So CSI: New York lived because it was a big fish in a smaller pond, while CSI: Miami got
lost in the shuffle.
"We have a victim that started the weekend big man on campus, and ended it dead on arrival."
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