CBS Unveils Summer Premiere Dates

CBS just announced the premiere dates for its biggest TV shows this summer, including Big Brother, Challenge: USA and Superfan. The network is leaning heavily on reality TV in the coming months and so far none of these decisions are impacted by the writers strike. For those that love competitions and unscripted series, it will be a strong summer.

Big Brother Season 25 will premiere on Wednesday, Aug. 2 with a special 90-minute episode to kick things off. The series will air on Sundays and Wednesdays at 8 p.m. and on Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET from then on. Meanwhile, Challenge: USA Season 2 premieres on Thursday, Aug. 10 at 10 p.m. ET. It will then air on Thursday and Sunday nights for the rest of the season, which will run from Aug. 13 to Aug. 27. The new series Superfan is also in the mix here, premiering on Wednesday, Aug. 9 and following Big Brother on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m. ET after that.

The other big premiere coming this summer is Secret Celebrity Renovation Season 3, which will be the first to get started. The season premiere is on Friday, July 28 at 9 p.m. ET and will air on Friday nights after that. All four shows will be available to stream on Paramount+ week to week. You can watch them live as they are on broadcast TV or catch them after the fact to keep up.

Superfan is the biggest change to this schedule, as it was originally slated to premiere on June 9. The new series is a competition where guests try to prove they are the biggest fan of their chosen musical artist. In each episode, the musician themselves will appear to crown their biggest fan in the end. So far, confirmed celebrity participants include Kelsea Ballerini, Gloria Estefan, Little Big Town, LL Cool J, Pitbull, and Shania Twain. The show will be hosted by Nate Burleson and Keltie Knight.

There is a lot of focus on the reality TV programming plans for this summer as the WGA writers' strike rages on. Many TV fans have said that the last WGA strike in 2008 pushed unscripted TV into prominence, though that generalization has been disputed. Still, many fans are eager to compare the merits of reality TV with that of scripted programming.

In truth, networks typically schedule big reality TV events for the summer and save the scripted shows for the fall and spring seasons, so, for now, nothing is out of place. However, industry analysts have said that the fall season will be impacted if the strike does not end by late June. So far, there's no telling when the labor strike will break.