Blue Bloods Audience Hit a Season High With Series Finale, CBS Reports
The Reagans went out on a high note.
CBS is reporting that Friday’s Blue Bloods series finale averaged 6.7 million total viewers (according to VideoAmp Overnight data; Paramount is not contracted with Nielsen this TV season). That marks a Season 14 high for the family/cop drama, including the 10 episodes that aired February through May; a second straight week of growth (+11%); and a 3% increase over May’s mid-season finale.
According to VideoAmp and CBS Research estimates, that final audience could grow to north of 11.4 million viewers with Live+7 playback alone.
TVLine gave the Blue Bloods series ender an average grade of “A-“; read TVLine’s recap, and get the inside story on the episode’s choice of big death and why [Spoiler] wasn’t at the final Sunday dinner.
Series front man Tom Selleck and other cast members lobbied for the show to continue, but CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach believed it was time for Blue Bloods to turn in its badge.
“We love this cast, we love their passion for the show. All shows have to come to an end. It’s important to us to refresh the schedule,” Reisenbach said in May.
In June, Paramount Global co-CEO Brian Robbins said during a presentation to stockholders,“ In TV, new franchise extensions are coming for Dexter, Billions, and Blue Bloods” — quietly revealing that the long-running family/cop drama might spawn a spinoff.
It was not clear if any such offshoot would be for CBS or Paramount+. Instead, the focus has been on finding the best premise, after one pitch centered on Donnie Wahlberg’s Danny Reagan failed to “materialize,” our sister site Deadline reported.
“We don’t have anything that’s going to be in development soon, but it’s a brand, a title and a show that is beloved,” CBS Studios president David Stapf told Deadline. “We’ve got to get it right, so we’re taking our time and trying to figure it out, ‘OK, what is the next iteration of Blue Bloods?’”
Got lingering questions about Blue Bloods, or for any other TV show? Shoot an email to InsideLine@tvline.com, and your question may be answered via Matt’s Inside Line!
CBS just cannot take success and strives to fail.
Obviously, the cancellation has to do with production cost/wages. after 14 seasons they would be making too much to reflect the ratings.
Should never have been canceled! There was no sensible reason to let the show go.
💰💸💵
It costs money to produce that’s why it was cancelled
All shows cost money to produce. Please don’t tell me when Mark Harmon was still with NCIS that that show was not expensive. That show is still going with just as large of a main cast. NCIS also has more action scenes which I believe is more costly than what Blue Bloods has.
This show is great could you think about bringing it back. Enjoyed it every week. Taped it and even watched it a second time. Cast is greatest.
I think CBS has done this terrible thing in not keeping this show going. Why get rid of a good show when it has high ratings you have done a bad thing.
I have watched the show since the beginning and I would love to watch a continuation of Jamie and Edie.
CRIMINAL MINDS returned to Paramount+ after several years and did better than it’s last two seasons on CBS! Season 3 is wrapped, and with the high viewing numbers for both new episodes and the 15 seasons on P+, a 4th season is almost a given!
I’d expect BLUE BLOODS in some form to return within 3 years…
From your mouth to Gods ears!!!
The execs were so very wrong.
Why mess with something that was great. Blue Bloods was great. Get rid of the top executives and keep the show. No brainer. The viewers have spoken.
I am heartbroken that it is not coming back. It is a great clean family show. It needs to come back. Take something else off that is not for families!
For those complaining about the cancelation. It comes down to numbers
Here are the average eyes on the show for the past 12 years. Remember 6.7 mill watched the last episode
Season 1 12.58mill
Season 2 12.15mill
Season 3 13.16
Season 4 13.63
Season 5 13.77
Season 6 13.07
Season 7 14.07
Season 8 13.09
Season 9 12.83
Season 10 11.96
Season 11 10.16
Seaspon 12 9.78
Season 13 9.40
I love the show but numbers were going down and at the end of the day that is what counts. It was also a very expensive show to make
NCIS mothership at age 22 is still above 10mill an episode(usually) and sells well over seas
The numbers above are grossly misleading, comparing what I can only imagine are Live+7 numbers to the series finale’s Live+Same Day 6.7 million.
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Blue Bloods Season 14A averaged 8.4 million viewers with Live+7, without a robust fall launch.
If CBS thought 22 episodes a season was so expensive, it should have moved the show to Paramount and cut it to 10 a season. The following this show had, it would have made fans happy, advertisers who have depended on this shows high ratings happy and syndicators happy for adding more episodes.
Canceling this show proves most executives in the TV industry have no clue what fans want.
Im guessing that advertiser money isn’t as lucrative as you’re imagining. Keep in mind the show’s demographic, who I imagine to be in the 50+ yrs range. That group tends to spend less money, so why would advertisers pay for ads for a group that simply doesn’t spend enough money? Younger people don’t stay in on Fridays to watch TV. They go out.
We need a Blue Bloods reboot as soon as possible.
Reading between the lines of various comments in multiple publications and by the actor himself, it is pretty clear that the Danny spin-off idea is still alive (and may never have been “dead” in the first place) But also that the cast as a whole still has a slim hope of some kind of revival/reversal (particularly reading between the lines of the Variety piece, notably an industry insider publication, in part echoed by an actor tweet on Friday)
CBS should have extended the show for another seven episodes, to make it to 300. This would have been a great milestone after fourteen seasons.
Yeah, they were do close to the 300 mark. Why stop so short?
A lot of good that did. They still cancelled it. The finale should have been two hours. Disappointed
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! A bunch of dumb dumbs running CBS.
Fire the ceo of CBS she is an idiot
Nielsen says it’s 5.86 mil. Who should we trust here?
It’ll be back in a few years. Look at all the reboots and spinoffs and prequels CBS does because their originals rarely do as well. When their Friday numbers take a nosedive for 2 or 3 seasons the lightbulb will flicker on.
It maybe too late at that point. CBS is crying that it cost too much to produce. Once the sets are gone, the cost to rebuild them on top of payroll may make it more expensive.
i do not understand why a program that so many of us viewers love is taken off the air. when you think about the show. it was such a favorite even tho it was on Friday nights…many stayed home to watch it. but leaving on the shows that are more idiotic is beyone me. I do wish that some one with brains would rethink this decision
Watched the series finale last night. Didn’t think the show was really anything special. A little disappointed actually. Oh well…still a good show that shouldn’t have been cancelled.
However, I love that the show gave respect to the police & the NYPD specifically. With all the hate out there towards police, it was nice to see a show out there that stood firm in their solidarity with the police. It’s a very difficult job that they do every day & I appreciate all they do to protect & serve our communities. Blue Bloods always stayed true to that.
I was sad to see shows like Blue blood and So help me Todd being cancelled as it was one of the most wholesome shows. Sad to see good clean television is being cancelled instead of the other crappy shows.
Why would cbs be willing to give up on a winning time slot? Guess they don’t really care to entertain us.
CBS – You’re forkin` idiots! Blue Bloods is top billing and you cut your nose despite your face. You ugly pieces of Shiite!
Remember in the 70’s we had Mystery Movies of Columbo, McMillan & Wife, McCloud? Maybe CBS could do rotating movies of Blue Bloods, Magnum P.I., NCIS: Miami and Hawaii Five-O. Shows we all miss and would like to see again. What do you think?