Thoughts for March

I said I would be back in March; this post is to set the scene for the blog’s anniversary month. I continue to miss these characters and this special show.

In this post, I will also share some of my general thoughts about the changes to CBS’s schedule caused by the loss of Blue Bloods and the ‘franchise extension’.

Brief Return From Hiatus

It’s been a couple of months so firstly thanks to everyone who has continued to visit the blog. One of the things I’ve been doing this year is watching various police dramas, although they are a bit different from the standard procedural. It started last year with The Turkish Detective, and I’ve now watched Crá (Torment), an Irish language show; An t-Eilean (The Island), a Gaelic language show; I’m now watching Wisting which is Norwegian. I didn’t notice at first, but I must acknowledge that I’m being drawn to various cop shows where I have to rely on subtitles.

Later this month will mark the sixth anniversary of the blog’s launch, so one of the reasons for my return from hiatus is to acknowledge that anniversary. To celebrate, I’ll be posting my thoughts on the season 14 deleted scenes; at the moment I haven’t settled on a date for posting the deleted scenes; it will either be March 17 (St Patrick’s Day) or March 24 (the day before the 6th anniversary of my first main blog post). I will end the month by revisiting my general thoughts about the Jamie and Eddie storylines in season 14; this will cover any impact the deleted scenes might have had and also reconsider some elements now we have a bit more distance from the final episode’s airdate.

News About the Spin-Off

It seems funny to think that less than two weeks ago we would still have said there was no news about the ‘franchise extension’; there may have been an announcement but at the same time there’s very little information available. At the moment, I’m not particularly excited by the idea (Danny was my least favourite Reagan); however, I don’t think anyone can judge whether it will truly be a successor to Blue Bloods until it airs.

I’ve now added a section to the show news menu for Boston Blue, I may not cover it in depth, but that all depends on who appears.

What do we know for certain about the spin-off?

• the current working title is Boston Blue replacing Jamaica Plain; the revised title keeps the alliteration of two Bs and the Blue of Blue Bloods. It also highlights that the show is set in Boston rather than New York.
• it wasn’t originally intended to have any connection to Blue Bloods; it’s only the addition of Donnie Wahlberg and consequently Danny Reagan that has turned this into part of the previously announced plans for a franchise extension. For now, Danny is the only legacy character that connects the new show to Blue Bloods.
• Danny will have a new partner who is a member of a Boston law enforcement family (presumably this is intended to be the Boston equivalent of the Reagans).

As Boston Blue is a working title, it’s still subject to change. Maybe it could become Blue Bloods: Boston which would be the typical format of a franchise such as NCIS: Hawai’i or Dexter: New Blood. Admittedly, Blue Bloods isn’t a unique title which might be why they aren’t already using it in the working title. There’s already a vampire show in the works based on a book series called Blue Bloods. I don’t think anyone would confuse the two shows, but it’s unlikely any of the executives would want shows on different networks with a similar title.

We could wonder how CBS went from announcing a ‘franchise extension’ to greenlighting a show originally pitched without any intention to tie it to Blue Bloods. Deadline shared details of two other show ideas passed over; one took Danny to Texas, and the other focused on Frank. We had probably already heard about the latter thanks to Tom Selleck’s somewhat dismissive comments; he couldn’t imagine a world where Frank would leave New York. As Tom Selleck told Parade, “I don’t see him retiring and going off somewhere. If he goes off to a small town, I’d rather do more Jesse Stone movies.”

It feels like there has been a common theme to the show pitches; they’ve all been based on taking a single character from the original and removing them from New York. It adds weight to the argument that Blue Bloods was cancelled due to the twin costs of a large cast filming in New York. However, it appears that attempting to expand the show this way misses the point of what made it successful. Obviously, CBS still wants to attract the large audience Blue Bloods had, but at a lower cost.

Comparison of Viewing Figures

Despite headlines to the contrary, comparing recent viewing figures to the 2024 line-up gives insight into why CBS is keen to keep Blue Bloods going (even if they wanted to ‘refresh’ the schedule). There have been minor changes to the viewing figures, but then you have to consider the age of the remaining shows compared to Blue Bloods; that a 15-year-old show was achieving similar or better numbers than a brand-new show is something that cannot be dismissed. It highlights the reality that keeping things ‘fresh’ means keeping shows cheap, as that’s the only real difference between a new show and a veteran show. CBS seems to be leaning into building its schedule around spin-offs; its main challenge is that spin-offs typically draw a smaller audience than the show that spawned them.

Last month I posted on Twitter and Threads about the difference between the viewing figures on December 6 (when the penultimate episode of Blue Bloods aired) and January 31 (when the first new episodes aired in 2025). The following viewing figures are from the Programming Insider website.

Dec’ 6			Jan’ 31
Blue Bloods	10:00 PM	5.36 m	Fire Country	9:00 PM	3.80 m
Fire Country	9:00 PM	4.51 m	S.W.A.T	10:00 PM	3.14 m
S.W.A.T	8:00 PM	4.33 m

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To be fair here’s a year-on-year comparison for the week of February 23, 2024 and February 21, 2025.

2024			2025
Blue Bloods	10:00 PM	5.29 m	Fire Country	9:00 PM	4.47 m
Fire Country	9:00 PM	5.08 m	NCIS Sydney	8:00 PM	4.37 m
S.W.A.T	8:00 PM	4.86 m	S.W.A.T	10:00 PM	3.48 m

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Viewing habits continue to change as more people watch their shows via streaming at a time that suits them, so there is a general downward trend in viewers; however, it’s noticeable that although NCIS Sydney has been able to roughly maintain the December viewer numbers for the 8:00 PM slot, albeit with a much lower demo (0.28 vs 0.38), S.W.A.T.‘s audience for its seventh season is smaller than what Blue Bloods achieved during its 14th season and with only a slightly better demo (0.34 vs 0.3).

It has been easy to overlook the significance of the audience Blue Bloods attracted at 10 PM on a Friday, but it isn’t difficult to imagine why CBS wants to recapture that success. Following the decision to end the show, CBS must have expected its 10 PM hour to slip from gold to bronze for its Friday night viewing figures, which probably explains the plan for the franchise extension.

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That’s enough of my rambling thoughts; what’s your view on where things stand now?