The War of 18-49, NCIS

NCIS (CBS)

Scheduling history: NCIS has aired its entire run on Tuesdays and always been regularly scheduled at 8/7c. That will finally change in fall 2021, when it moves to Monday for season 19.

See (who saw) how it all began: The year was 2003, and on September 23, the premiere was just a 2.6/8. That's a pretty rough beginning in that day and age, but CBS was not in as good a place back then, so the growth from that premiere number (to a 2.7 in week two and a 2.9 in week three) encouraged the net to stick with NCIS in the early going. While the show would break into the 3's several times during season 1, it was still the low 3's, and American Idol stepped in at midseason and seemed to hurt the show down the stretch, dropping it to a 2.4 (preliminary) for the first-season finale.

The best of times: The show gradually grew to a little below a 4.0 average in season 3, but it appeared for awhile that was the peak, as it dropped in seasons 4 and 5 till it was back around season 2 levels. But then, in season 6, the show found a second wind that is highly improbable for veteran TV drama. Maybe it was the pairing with The Mentalist, maybe it was the heavy syndication on USA Network, and maybe it was something that happened creatively (I'm not a viewer) but it perked up in season 6 and then again in season 7 to average over a 4.0 for the first time ever. Season seven would exceed its highest point of the first six seasons (4.4) on four occasions, peaking with a 4.8/14 for the first two episodes of season 7 (on 9/22/09 and 9/29/09). For the peetooplus crowd, it broke the 20 million viewer plateau thirteen times in season 7 compared to zero such times in seasons 1-6. And its eighth and ninth seasons came down by only a tiny amount, making the show into broadcast TV's #1 drama in 2011-12 and 2012-13.

The worst of times: For 11 seasons, an amazing statistic remained true: the show's lowest raw numbers still came in season one, back when it was called Navy NCIS. It averaged just over a 2.7 demo for the season and went as low as a mere 2.1 demo on 5/4/04. In season 12, NCIS finally hit a new raw low, dropping to a 2.0 for each of the last four episodes of the season. And it fell below 2.0 for the first time on 4/19/16. But on a historical-adjusted basis, the show was still over twice as strong as in season one. It fell to its first 1.0 on 5/7/19, but still aired 17 seasons without going fractional. But the vast majority of season 18 was sub-1.0.

Then vs. now: I knew when I first started digging up NCIS ratings that this would be a fun post, because it's a very topsy-turvy show.  Most primetime shows peak early and then slide downhill into irrelevance.  This one started low and peaked well into the game. Its slight decrease in season eight despite not having to face American Idol for the first time and then the show's first double-digit decline in season ten means we may finally be past the NCIS peak, but not by much. And this late-game resurgence has really been something to behold. In the opening years of its run, it didn't even belong in the ratings conversation with the CSI shows that defined the CBS drama brand. Now, it easily outshines them all.

Adults 18-49 info by season:

Seas	Year	Slot	Avg	y2y	Lo	Hi	Results	Grade
1	2003-04	Tuesday 8:00	2.73		2.1	3.1	detail
2	2004-05		Tuesday 8:00	3.27	+20%	2.8	3.9		detail
3	2005-06		Tuesday 8:00	3.92	+20%	3.3	4.4		detail
4	2006-07		Tuesday 8:00	3.66	-6%	3.1	4.2		detail
5	2007-08		Tuesday 8:00	3.36	-8%	2.9	4.1		detail
6	2008-09		Tuesday 8:00	3.64	+9%	3.1	4.0		detail
7	2009-10		Tuesday 8:00	4.07	+12%	3.1	4.8		detail
8	2010-11		Tuesday 8:00	3.99	-2%	3.5	4.6	detail	B
9	2011-12		Tuesday 8:00	3.75	-6%	3.1	4.3	detail	B
10	2012-13		Tuesday 8:00	3.35	-11%	2.7	4.1	detail	B-
11	2013-14		Tuesday 8:00	2.81	-16%	2.2	3.6	detail	C+
12	2014-15		Tuesday 8:00	2.43	-14%	2.0	2.9	detail	C+
13	2015-16		Tuesday 8:00	2.21	-9%	1.9	2.7	detail	B+
14	2016-17		Tuesday 8:00	1.72	-22%	1.3	2.2	detail	C
15	2017-18		Tuesday 8:00	1.40	-18%	1.1	1.6	detail	C+
16	2018-19		Tuesday 8:00	1.22	-13%	1.0	1.4	detail	B+
17	2019-20		Tuesday 8:00	1.12	-8%	1.0	1.3	detail	B+
18	2020-21		Tuesday 8:00	0.82	-27%	0.6	1.0	detail	C+
19	2021-22	Monday 9:00	0.57	-30%	0.4	0.7	detail	B-
20	2022-23		Monday 9:00	0.43	-24%	0.3	0.6	detail	C+
21	Spring 2024		Monday 9:00	0.42	-3%	0.4	0.5	detail	B+

Historical-adjusted ratings by season:

Seas	Year	A18-49+	Label	Now24	y2y	Lo	Hi	Premiere	Finale
1	2003-04	67	flop	0.25		52	76	67	59
2	2004-05	80	marginal	0.31	+20%	69	96	79	86
3	2005-06	96	marginal	0.37	+20%	81	108	94	94
4	2006-07	97	marginal	0.37	+1%	82	111	90	90
5	2007-08	102	solid	0.39	+4%	88	124	97	103
6	2008-09	121	solid	0.46	+19%	103	133	120	113
7	2009-10	144	hit	0.55	+19%	110	171	171	117
8	2010-11	157	big hit	0.60	+9%	138	181	157	157
9	2011-12	159	big hit	0.60	+1%	131	182	182	152
10	2012-13	159	big hit	0.60	0%	128	195	195	161
11	2013-14	149	hit	0.57	-6%	117	191	191	138
12	2014-15	144	hit	0.55	-3%	119	172	172	119
13	2015-16	152	big hit	0.58	+5%	130	185	172	179
14	2016-17	140	hit	0.53	-8%	106	180	180	122
15	2017-18	128	hit	0.49	-9%	104	150	146	115
16	2018-19	128	hit	0.49	+0%	109	151	151	121
17	2019-20	136	hit	0.52	+6%	121	164	164	153
18	2020-21	127	hit	0.48	-7%	93	150	147	112
19	2021-22	111	solid	0.42	-12%	84	143	143	98
20	2022-23	101	solid	0.38	-9%	77	131	98	91
21	Spring 2024	111	solid	0.42	+9%	95	129	129	113
AVERAGE:		AVERAGE:	124	solid
CAREER:		CAREER:	2611	icon

The War of 18-49 chronicles the ratings history of veteran primetime series. For more, see the Index.