CSI, The Good Wife, and Madam Secretary are among the shows that could get canceled by CBS due to early ratings.
The Good Wife, which kicked off season 6 back on September 21, has averaged over 10 million viewers across its first four episodes.
But Zap2It, which analyzes ratings and other factors, says that it’s a “toss up” at this point whether The Good Wife (along with the two other shows) will get canceled as opposed to renewed for another season.
There have been rumblings that season 6 of The Good Wife could be the last season due to reasons other than ratings, but co-creator Robert King said in September that there’s a seven season plan.
King told E! Online that there is a “plan for seven years, but I don’t want to say it ends there because CBS may have other plans.” He also said that there’s a contingency plan in case there’s not a season 7, meaning the writers and producers could wrap it up neatly by the end of season 6 (or that they would seek out another network for a season 7).
CSI started season 15 a week after The Good Wife season 6 started. CSI has been extremely popular over the years, reaching over 30 million viewers in some earlier seasons, but started a gradual drop after season 6. All three episodes in season 15 have fallen short of 9.4 million viewers, with the most recent two falling short of 8.8 million.
Unlike the other two shows, Madam Secretary is a rookie program. It kicked off on September 21 with 14.7 million overall viewers (2 million in the key 18-49 demographic) and has since dropped each episode to 11.5 million (1.4 million) in episode 4 on October 12.
