Why NCIS: Sydney was renewed while Hawaii was canceled

2024 was a good year for the NCIS franchise…for the most part. The flagship show has been renewed for season 22, NCIS: Sydney has been renewed for season 2, and we learned of two new spin-offs on the way: the prequel NCIS: Originswhich will debut on CBS as part of the 2024 television lineup, and NCIS: Tony and Ziva, which will be exclusive to people with a Paramount+ subscription. But in case of bad news, NCIS: Hawaii was canceled after three seasons. Some of you may be wondering why Hawaii got the axe, but Sydney succeeded, and it turns out there are indications that the latter is favored by Paramount.

The NCIS franchise is popular in Australia

Even before NCIS: Sydney arrived, the NCIS the franchise was very popular in Australia. Dan Monaghan, senior vice president of content and programming at Paramount ANZ, said this in May 2023, at the time Sydney started shooting. At the Screen Forever 2023 event (via TVTonight), Monaghan said his “boss” talked about getting a “version” of NCIS in Australia for a long time, and this wish finally came true.

Furthermore, in the announcement of SydneyDuring the season 2 renewal of (via THR), CBS Entertainment president Amy Reisenbach said that this spinoff helped “the global power of NCIS franchise” becomes even stronger. With language like this, one would say that Sydney attracted more attention from the international public than Hawaii was, thus making the decision to continue with the show easier.

Hawaii was probably more expensive to make than Sydney

Before NCIS: Hawaii was canceled, it was reported that if season 4 had moved forward, the series would have seen a massive cut in its budget, which would have likely resulted in the season only being around 13 episodes instead of the usual 22. According to Deadline, the series’ producers had agreed to this and “other concessions,” but ultimately, CBS canceled it anyway.

So even if Hawaii And Sydney having achieved similar ratings during the last television season, it can be assumed that it is cheaper to make the spin-off in the Land Down Under. If this is indeed the case, it makes sense to understand why Hawaii found itself on the chopping block from a budgetary standpoint. When we combine this with Sydney‘s international appeal, it stands to reason that Paramount felt there were more benefits to letting this show continue and calling it quits one day. Hawaii. However, there was no shortage of disappointments, both from the fans and the Hawaii actors on this turn of events, and earlier this month, Ernie Malik trolled CBS with reports that the series landed at 16th in total viewers for the 2023-2024 television season.

Until now, none of the NCIS Both established and upcoming shows still have premiere dates, but stay tuned to CinemaBlend for updates on their progress and head to Paramount+ to watch all of the franchise’s offerings.