CBS Studios’ David Stapf On ‘Your Honor’ Streaming Resurgence & Possible Revival, Those Painful CBS & CW Cancellations, ‘Blue Bloods’ Offshoots & More
When the Nielsen streaming charts for the week of June 3 were revealed Monday, the overall ranking was led by Your Honor which originally ran for two seasons on Showtime from Dec. 2020 until March 2023. The legal thriller starring Bryan Cranston, which has been streaming on Paramount+, was No. 1 by a wide margin, amassing 1.5B minutes viewed in its first full week of also being available on Netflix in the U.S.
Your Honor, from CBS Studios and studio-based Robert and Michelle King, joined on the list perennial Nielsen Top 10-er, long-running CBS/CBS Studios procedural NCIS, which also streams on Paramount+ and Netflix, as well and another CBS Studios drama from the Kings that has been a recent staple on the Originals Nielsen chart, Evil, with its current Season 4 on Paramount+ supplemented by the first two seasons streaming on Netflix.
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This marks only the second time a CBS Studios show has topped the overall weekly U.S. streaming ranking after Criminal Minds (co-produced with ABC Signature) did it early 2021 when Nielsen’s streaming measurements were in their infancy. (UPDATE: For the following week of June 10, Your Honor viewing rose 24% to 1.9B minutes to rank #2 behind Bridgerton, fueled by the release of Season 3B.)
In an interview with Deadline, CBS Studios President David Stapf speaks about Your Honor‘s newfound success and whether it could lead to a third season. He discusses the benefits of a windowing strategy for shows like NCIS and Evil, selling to third party buyers in a contracted marketplace, streamers’ growing appetite for broadcast-style procedurals and the prospects for more American Vandal.
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Additionally, Stapf addresses the recent cancellations of the studio’s CBS series NCIS: Hawai’i, So Help Me Todd and CSI: Vegas and CW drama Walker and potential Blue Bloods spinoffs.
One topic that Stapf declined to discuss is the proposed $8B takeover of CBS Studios parent Paramount Global by David Ellison’s Skydance.
The first comments from the potential new leadership have been encouraging for CBS Studios’ future as they have vowed “to double-down on the core competency of storytelling across mediums,” touting CBS as “part of the equation” going forward amid its continuing ratings strength, and indicating that Paramount+ would stay on. CBS Studios is the largest scripted TV content generator in the combined entity, and it also is the main supplier to CBS and Paramount+.
Your Honor‘s Big Return
Paramount has been the most open to content windowing among the vertically integrated traditional media companies and didn’t pull back on licensing its series to outside platforms when it launched its own streamer like others did. The deal to have Your Honor run on Netflix alongside Paramount+ in the U.S. for a period of time is part of that strategy.
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“We’re extremely proud of the show and knew how good it was,” Stapf said of his expectations about Your Honor‘s performance on Netflix. “Having it air on another platform, we anticipated more people discovering it; audiences always find things that are good.”
It probably didn’t hurt that Your Honor is headlined and produced by a Netflix pioneer, Cranston. His Emmy-winning AMC series Breaking Bad was considered the first streaming hit when its repeats took off on Netflix in 2011, with the then-fledgling SVOD platform using the Vince Gilligan-created drama as a blueprint for making bingeable series.
“Bryan has been a really terrific partner, not only as a producer and an actor, but more importantly as somebody who’s been advocating for the show,” Stapf said.
Indeed, Cranston has been actively promoting the Netflix run of Your Honor on social media to his millions of followers. “As we now know, that makes a huge difference,” Stapf said.
Your Honor Season 3?
Your Honor was already a success on Showtime — logging the most-watched debut season on the network ever with 6.6 million weekly viewers — which is why the limited series based on the Israeli format Kvodo ended up getting a second season with no underlying material.
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Like was the case with another successful in its original run series, USA Network’s Suits, Your Honor has been able to reach a new, wider audience on Netflix, and its resurgence has inevitably brought up questions about a third season. (Suits‘ newfound popularity on Netflix led to a spinoff pilot at NBC.)
“We love the show, and we’re hoping that it can continue, but it’s a little too soon to know or to tell,” Stapf said, cautioning fans not to raise their expectations — at least for now. “We would like there to be a Season 3 but we’re ways away.”
Netflix halo effect
While Your Honor was a library acquisition, the other Kings drama on the Nielsen streaming rankings, Evil, is a rare ongoing streaming original series with a partial second window on a rival platform. That has worked out well, according to Stapf.
“The Paramount+ numbers of Evil go up because it’s getting additional exposure on Netflix,” he said.
Stapf compared the impact to the cable syndication model, noting how a decade ago, repeats of NCIS on USA Network lifted the ratings for new episodes airing on CBS.
“I sort of equate this to being similar,” he said. “You’re exposing the show to that many more people, so potentially some of those people are new viewers, and then they, in turn, go back to watch previous seasons or future seasons.”
NCIS and another fixture on Nielsen’s overall streaming Top 10, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy, are ongoing broadcast series. Stapf agrees that their popularity on streaming has helped the shows’ longevity on broadcast, with both dramas past the 20-season mark.
But above all, “I think deep down they’re both great shows that have really interesting stories and compelling characters.”
Selling during a contraction
Netflix played a key role in CBS Studios’ expansion into streaming. The first wave of CBS Studios streaming series included the 2017 American Vandal on the platform, followed by the 2019 Dead To Me and limited series Unbelievable.
But, except for the short-lived Glamorous, which had been originally developed for the CW, CBS Studios has not produced original series for Netflix lately as the studio’s focus has been on revving up sibling Paramount+’s slate.
At the same time, the industry has been going through a contraction, making it hard to sell original series as networks and streamers have pulled back.
“I think it’s always been hard; it’s probably a little bit harder now,” Stapf said. “There’s a lot of people selling and there’s a lot of platforms that are undergoing the same sort of contraction that everybody else is. So it’s harder but it’s not impossible.”
Still, streaming content remains “a big priority” for the studio, including selling to third parties while “maintaining the status that we have at CBS and continuing to put shows on Paramount+,” he added.
CBS Studios has shows in development at Netflix “but nothing that’s imminent,” Stapf said. The studio actually has an original on the streamer right now, kids animated series Star Trek: Prodigy, which was picked up by Netflix after it was dropped by Paramount+ in a cost-cutting move. The existing first season and an all-new Season 2 were released on Netflix last week.
Meanwhile, CBS Studios’ Paramount+ series Star Trek: Discovery, which streamed on Netflix internationally early in its run, also recently cracked into the Nielsen Originals Top 10 with its final season.
Procedurals wanted & American Vandal redux
Surprisingly, CBS Studios may have a leg up in the tough streaming marketplace because of its long traditions and expertise in broadcast-style procedurals, a genre that is gaining popularity among streamers with such originals as medical procedurals The Pitt on Max and Pulse on Netflix.
“We’ve been approached a lot about that,” Stapf said. “We do make a lot of really strong procedurals, whether they’d be law, cop, medical. Part of our whole philosophy is, we’re a content provider, and we want to create as much content and spread it around as long as we’re doing it in a financially efficient way, and ultimately making money.”
Meanwhile, the rights of the first from CBS Studios’ initial batch of original series for Netflix, American Vandal, have reverted back to CBS Studios.
“We’re exploring that, we loved that show and that title,” Stapf said. “There’s nothing imminent, but we hope to bring it back in some fashion at some point.”
NCIS: Hawai’i, So Help Me Todd & CSI: Vegas cancellations
During the interview with Stapf earlier this week, #SaveNCISHawaii was trending on X. While NCIS has been a blockbuster franchise that has spawned multiple long-running series, the latest installment, NCIS: Hawai’i, was canceled by CBS after three seasons. It was one of several painful April cancellations for CBS Studios at CBS, alongside So Help Me Todd and CSI: Vegas, when the network found itself with a crop of new and returning series that all performed well.
“it’s bittersweet, I love those shows a lot, so it was tough,” Stapf said of the three CBS dramas CBS Studios lost heading into next season as it landed three new ones for 2024-25, Matlock, NCIS: Origins and Watson — and even one for 2025-26, Sheriff Country.
While the studio was not involved in CBS’ renewal conversations, “I understood and sympathized with how difficult a decision it was to say goodbye to those,” he said. “it’s always sad, and those shows were great. Probably any other year, they would have stuck around but there’s just not as many midseason slots anymore.”
The studio sought out new homes for the canceled series but was unsuccessful.
Blue Bloods brand to live on
Also coming to an end is CBS Studios’ long-running CBS drama series Blue Bloods. At a recent Paramount shareholder meeting, Paramount Global co-CEO Brian Robbins teased “new franchise extensions” coming for several series, including Blue Bloods.
Over the past several months, there had been talk about potential Blue Bloods spinoffs centered on different characters, including one about Donnie Wahlberg’s Danny Reagan, which I hear did not materialize.
“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,” Stapf said. “We’ve got to get it right so we’re taking our time and trying to figure it out, okay, what is the next iteration of Blue Bloods? We have a whole season to go where we intend to celebrate it all season long as to how good that show is, so there’s still time for us to figure that out.”
The final eight episodes of Blue Bloods air this fall.
And while one NCIS series, Hawai’i, ended, two new ones are coming, Young Gibbs prequel Origins for CBS and spinoff Tony & Ziva for Paramount+, which Stapf is bullish on.
“I think both of those are going to really elevate the strength of the franchise,” he said.
Walker‘s uphill battle
While not unexpected, Walker‘s cancellation by the CW after 4 seasons is emblematic of the economic realities at the new CW, which has been pushing down license fees for original scripted series to levels that are unsustainable for an U.S. production.
Walker, starring and executive produced by Jared Padalecki, remained the CW’s most watched series even after its license fee was cut to $500k-$550k an episode in Season 4, forcing the producers to get creative on a shoestring budget.
“We were obviously disappointed but I get it. It’s a business and CW has to make the decisions that they have to make, and I’m sure it was a difficult decision for them as well,” Stapf said. “But we’re really proud of that show, those producers and everybody involved did an incredible job, particularly given the budgetary restraints that we kept putting on them; it was pretty extraordinary. [Showrunner] Anna Fricke is a fantastic producer, and Jared is a great producer and lead; he was a really good number one.”
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