‘NCIS’ and ‘NCIS: Hawai’i’ Get Big News as TV Ratings Come In

The newest season of NCIS premiered on Monday night. NCIS fans also got to see the first episode of the show’s latest spinoff, NCIS: Hawai’i, on the very same night. According to TV Line, both of the shows performed incredibly well in the ratings. This is especially good news for two reasons — NCIS aired on a different night than usual and it was the first-ever episode of NCIS: Hawai’i. 

NCIS, in particular, dominated the night ratings-wise. The show’s Season 19 premiere drew 8.5 million total viewers and garnered a 0.7 rating in the demo. While NCIS: Hawai’i didn’t have as many viewers that tuned in, it still drew some big numbers for CBS. NCIS: Hawai’i had the third-largest audience of any show for the night (behind NCIS and The Voice). The new spinoff drew 6.6 million viewers and received a 0.5 rating in the demo, which TV Line noted was the highest retention rate of any new Monday show. 

The move to Monday nights was a major one for NCIS. Before making the move to Monday, NCIS aired on Tuesday nights at 8 p.m. ET, which was its timeslot ever since it premiered on the network in 2003. In a statement to Variety, CBS Entertainment President Kelly Kahl suggested that moving NCIS to Monday nights wouldn’t make too much of an impact on the series’ success. Kahl told the outlet, “If you look at the proof of what does work, these franchises work. And they and they work on a multitude of levels. They generally get pretty darn good live ratings, they get good delayed viewing, and they stream pretty well. That’s a win-win-win. That’s a win for viewers, that’s a win for the shows, that’s a win for the companies that own them. That’s what we’re looking for these days.”

NCIS: Hawai’i is the newest addition to the NCIS line-up. The series stars Vanessa Lachey as Special Agent Jane Tennant. She is the Special Agent in Charge of NCIS Pearl Harbor, which marks the first time in the NCIS franchise that a female character will be in the lead. The show also stars Yasmine Al-Bustami, Jason Antoon, and Noah Mills. Disclosure: PopCulture is owned by ViacomCBS Streaming, a division of ViacomCBS.