With a few days to go before the upfront market gets into full swing with New York’s stacked presentations, CBS got a head start on Wednesday afternoon — announcing its 2025-26 schedule and holding an intimate state of the union between press and CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach and CBS CEO and CCO, News and Sports for Paramount+, George Cheeks.
There were myriad elephants in the room, as is the case for every entertainment company these days, but the 45-minute gathering stressed positives. Namely, the broadcast network’s continued dominance among total viewers (primetime viewership was up 3 percent this last season and a more impressive 12 percent without sports), the successful launch of Matlock and, on deck, the first series set in Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone franchise to premiere on broadcast. But CBS, as one reporter pointed out, has 60 Minutes ongoing legal battle with president Trump, the looming (and yet to be approved) merger with Skydance and industries-wise anxiety about the economic downturn. “This is a sort of unprecedented challenging time for the industry and for our company in particular,” said Cheeks. “I think for me what’s most important as a leader is how you show up in a difficult time.”
When again pressed on the 60 Minutes issue, Cheeks remained charming and cordial. “I appreciate the try,” he said, “but I’ve had no tequila today.”
As broadcast schedules go, CBS’ may matter the most. Its large audience includes a lot of older viewers who’ve yet to cut the cord. It comes as no surprise then that the drama Marshals, which stars Luke Grimes reprising his role of Kayce Dutton from Sheridan’s Yellowstone, gets the cherry Sunday night slot behind linear TV’s most-watched entertainment program: Tracker.
How involved the infamously (compulsively?) hands-on Sheridan will be in this extension of his IP is not yet clear. SEAL Team executive producer Spencer Hudnut will serve as showrunner. “In terms of Taylor’s involvement, we’re still early in the process,” said Reisenbach. “He’s a very busy guy, but we’ll take what we can get.”
But of course, the TV press rarely like to dwell on the positives. Moments after hyping the formidable line-up of specials and hosts — The American Music Awards (Jennifer Lopez), The Tonys (Cynthia Erivo), The Emmys (Nate Bargatze), The Golden Globes (Nikki Glaser) — the conversation veered into the network’s loss of the Grammys telecast. After a 54-year run on the network, consistently delivering among the strongest ratings of all awards shows, the final CBS Grammys aired in February before a 10-year deal to move to Disney and ABC.
“My very strong view is you have to take a disciplined approach to all of these negotiations,” said Cheeks. “At the end of the day, we weren’t prepared to make an uneconomic deal. We wish Disney and ABC all the best.”
When asked if he was suggesting ABC made a bad deal, made himself clear: “I did not say that. I just said economics are different at every company. For us, it wouldn’t have been uneconomic deal.”
Speaking of bad economics, late-night has had a particularly rough go these days. And while Cheeks, who long ran the late-night block at NBC, reiterated that the upcoming conclusion to After Midnight was Taylor Tomlinson was her decision… he did not express any regrets about waving the white flag for original programming ion that hour. He noted it’s particularly challenged from an ad sales perspective. As for her lead-in, Stephen Colbert, talk of his future on the network seems to be on hold for another day.
“We have another year on [his] deal,” Cheeks says of Colbert, who hits 10 years at The Late Show desk this fall. “We have not had that conversation, but we really like our hand.”
Since the pair couldn’t resist hyping their slate without trotting out some star power, Blue Bloods star Donnie Wahlberg come out to hype upcoming spinoff Boston Blue and reveal his co-star. Sonequa Martin-Green joined him in the Hollywood conference room to announce she’d be leading the Boston set series as well and remind her co-star, a famous Boston native, is still playing a New Yorker. “Don’t forget your character doesn’t like Boston,” she cautioned.
The Wahlberg clan is perhaps more synonymous with Massachusetts capital than any actors but Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. When pondering this stretch of his acting, Wahlberg only sighed and said, “This is going to be tough.”
