Crimetime Saturday is the official branding for a programming block that started in 2004–05 on the American CBS and Canadian CTV networks between 9 and 11 p.m. ET/PT on Saturday nights. However, the branding is only listed by industry sources as a placeholder for the time slot, and not as an official on-air branding for night.
The first two hours feature reruns of CBS's crime drama procedural series, which include the three series of the CSI franchise, Criminal Minds, NCIS, NCIS: Los Angeles, Cold Case (prior to its cancellation), Flashpoint (before its move to Ion Television) and The Mentalist, with the final hour featuring a new or encore edition of the CBS News newsmagazine program 48 Hours Mystery, which focuses on true crime stories. Several times a year 48 Hours will air two-hour specials or consecutive episodes.
Beginning in the 2011-12 season, the block was reduced to two hours from three to make room for Comedytime Saturday, a one-hour sitcom block, from 8–9 p.m. ET/PT. However, that hour was restored to Crimetime for the 2012-13 season due to that block never being executed as planned and becoming a basic hour of repeat sitcoms. In a few cases, burned off shows such as Made in Jersey have aired in the first hour to minimize ratings damage.
Famous quotes containing the word saturday:
“The return of the asymmetrical Saturday was one of those small events that were interior, local, almost civic and which, in tranquil lives and closed societies, create a sort of national bond and become the favorite theme of conversation, of jokes and of stories exaggerated with pleasure: it would have been a ready- made seed for a legendary cycle, had any of us leanings toward the epic.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)