CBS yesterday announced that its first-year drama “Elementary” will receive the post-Super Bowl XLVII slot on Feb. 3, 2013, and is expected to air at approximately 10:00pm ET. The show currently airs Thursdays at 10:00pm ET and is averaging 14.2 million viewers, ranking as the No. 2 new series on TV this season (CBS). In L.A., Joe Flint noted NBC, which aired last season's Super Bowl, “used that big audience to launch the second season of its musical competition show ‘The Voice,’ which drew more than 37 million viewers.” The broadcast nets “used to try to launch new programs out of the Super Bowl but now tend to use it to promote existing shows.” The “last time a new show was launched behind the Super Bowl was when CBS premiered the reality program ‘Undercover Boss’ in 2010” (LATIMES.com, 11/5). DAILY VARIETY’s Andrew Wallenstein wrote, “Choose wisely and suddenly a show can hit a whole new level, as NBC's ‘The Office’ did in 2009. Make the wrong move and you fritter away an opportunity: The Peacock picked ‘The Good Life’ in 1994 only to see it die 13 episodes later.” The selection “boils down to either giving a new series the shot of a lifetime or giving an existing property a shot in the arm.” CBS went with the latter, and “therein lies the problem: ‘Elementary’ hasn't displayed the kind of potential some other Eye assets have demonstrated.” Given how well CBS is “poised for midseason, the network would have been best launching a new series.” If there is any network that “knows how best to pump up a primetime property with the Super Bowl, it's CBS.” But picking a scripted drama “runs counter to the strategy it has employed in three of its last four outings” (VARIETY.com, 11/5).
