C5 joins the US drama hunt

LA SCREENINGS: The UK’s Channel 5 is in town looking for a replacement for CSI: New York as US drama continues to dominate its midweek 21.00 slot.

Katie Keenan

The UK net is one of several affected by the news this week that CBS has cancelled forensic drama CSI: New York after nine seasons, a move that will leave holes in international schedules the world over.

Channel 5 currently airs the programme in a 21.00 slot on Tuesdays, with the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in the same slot on Mondays, NCIS on Wednesdays and The Mentalist on Fridays. C5 head of acquisitions Katie Keenan told C21 that finding a replacement for Tuesday is a big part of her mission in LA this week.

“Whether that’s a procedural or a serialised drama, I don’t want to hem myself in at this stage,” she said. “You can’t replace like for like. As much as we’ve seen the trailers and read the synopsis, until you really see the full pilot in all its glory you can’t really start to pinpoint each drama.”

Nevertheless, Keenan’s eye has been caught by James Spader vehicle The Blacklist for NBC and Josh Whedon drama Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D on ABC.

“Drama is more of a focus for us than comedy,” she said. “C5 has tried comedy in the past and not seen a huge amount of success from it. I’d never want to rule it out but our focus at the moment is drama. Our audience expect us to deliver the best US drama.”

On general trends from Upfronts week, Keenan said she noticed a slight shift towards the UK model of shorter series commissions. “The US networks are seeing that viewers aren’t coming back to the repeats as much as they used to, so it seems like a sensible situation,” she said.

“It’s something [president of entertainment at ABC] Paul Lee has talked about since he started running ABC and he’s from the UK. It seems as though other networks are also following that strategy. CBS is now launching drama in the summer, which they haven’t done in the past.”