Blue Bloods Season 14 Renewal Could Come at a Steep Price
The last Tuesday CBS held a renewal blitz, announcing renewals for 9 series at once.
But one well-known series was suspiciously missing from that announcement. Blue Bloods. As it appears, its fate remains undecided.
Blue Bloods, currently in Season 13, still remains one of CBS' pillars, constantly in Top 5 of its scripted series, and currently its third most-watched drama.
However, it might be a victim of the recent tendency of broadcast networks to ask for budget reductions on long-running series, on the background of ratings and viewership declining across the board.
And while Blue Blood still delivers relatively strong performance, its average viewership also had declined, from 13+ millions for Seasons 3-8, to only 9.78 for Season 12. Clearly there are problems.
For modern-day series, like police procedurals, a very significant portion of expenses come from paying their cast. This is especially true for long-running series, because the longer a lead actor stays in a role, the larger salary he's likely to demand.
And Blue Bloods had built an enormous ensemble cast over its long run. As of Season 13, it has five main characters, plus at least nine recurring characters, some of whom appear in every episode. Paying them all is not cheap.
As Deadline reported (albeit without identifying their source):
"There had been rumblings that the cuts CBS had been pushing for on Blue Bloods were pretty deep, putting the show's future in limbo, but, after weeks of impasse, I hear negotiations are trending in the right direction and the network is hopeful to have the show back for Season 14."
So it is quite possible, that renewal of Blue Bloods for Season 14 could come at a steep price of cast reductions. CBS did not offer any comments and information about that so far.
We can only wait and watch for the news. At least Blue Bloods currently has better prospects for the future than another long-running CBS police procedural, NCIS: Los Angeles, which, according to a recent announcement, will end with its current 14th season, a decision which allegedly was, in part, motivated by high production costs.