CBS Entertainment Head Kelly Kahl Talks ‘Ghosts’ Success, More ‘CSI: Vegas’ as Midseason Schedule Takes Shape

The single-cam comedy “Ghosts” is far from dead at CBS, with CBS Entertainment president Kelly Kahl high on the show’s potential given its rating success.

“Every few years, you’re lucky enough to watch a show grow week by week and watch the word of mouth grow and watch the delayed viewing grow,” Kahl said in an interview with Variety. “I think ‘Ghosts’ is on its way to being the breakout comedy of the year. And it’s not slowing down. People are still discovering it. What we always have to remind ourselves these days is that it does take a little longer for people to discover shows. So the people who have discovered it really love it. And now the plan is just to try to get more eyeballs on it as the season goes on.”

Kahl spoke to Variety ahead of the release of the CBS winter and midseason schedule, which can be viewed in full here. “CSI: Vegas,” the limited series revival of the iconic CBS franchise, will wrap up its 10-episode run in December, but Kahl says that he is “hopeful” the show will return.

“We knew going in this was going to be 10 episodes only,” he said. “But you know, this is another one where the delayed viewing has been terrific. I mean, it’s doubling in delayed viewing. So we know there’s an appetite for the show, and nothing to announce here, but I certainly am hopeful and I think there’s a possibility we could see more episodes next year.”

The CBS schedule will rely heavily on “Celebrity Big Brother” going into February, when NBC will be airing wall-to-wall coverage of the 2022 Winter Olympics.

“It’s hard to program a counter program the Olympics,” Kahl said. “But ‘Big Brother’ has such a loyal audience that anytime we put it on, we get a significant audience. And it’s proven to be a really good programming vehicle against the Winter Olympics in the past.”

Among the other moves on the schedule, “SWAT” will be moving off of Friday nights to take over the Sunday 10 p.m. timeslot previously occupied by “SEAL Team.” The latter show aired the first few episodes of its fifth season on CBS before moving to Paramount Plus.

“We knew ‘SEAL Team’ was going to be a short term player and that we were going to have to put something at Sunday 10 o’clock,” Kahl said of the “SWAT” movie. “We quite frankly, with ‘SWAT,’ really liked the look of that lineup on Sunday and once you get out of football season, then you have more consistent start times every week, which is nice. But I would also say ‘SWAT’ absolutely did yeoman’s duty on Friday night.”

Kahl went on to say that moving “SEAL Team” and the Robert and Michelle King drama “Evil” over to Paramount Plus was “a little bittersweet.”

“You develop shows and put a lot of blood sweat and tears into not just developing developing them, but producing and then promoting them and getting them on the air,” he said. “But you know, we also want to give shows the best opportunity to succeed. And I think the good thing about our corporate setup right now is we have lots of outlets and we can really look for the best outlet for some of these shows…So it’s very much still a team effort and if we can help the team out and loan some programming to Paramount Plus, all the better.”