CBS bucks the trend with sitcoms

NEW YORK -- CBS will bring two comedies to its schedule on Wednesday nights in the fall, spreading jokes to a second night after confining its sitcoms to Mondays the past few years.

Emmy-winner Julia Louis-Dreyfus' "The New Adventures of Old Christine" and a new sitcom that stars Jay Mohr as a recently divorced painter and Paula Marshall as his ex-wife will be shown Wednesdays, CBS said in announcing its new schedule Wednesday.

CBS canceled the drama "Shark" and the gothic thriller "Moonlight." The network will move "Without a Trace" to Tuesday and "The Unit" to Sunday.

Adding more comedy -- six sitcoms each week instead of the current four -- runs counter to the trend in television, where the format has been struggling.

"This is big news for us," said Nina Tassler, CBS entertainment president. "We finally opened a second night of comedy. We had the goods to do it this year."

CBS renewed "How I Met Your Mother," a show with a questionable future until guest shots by Britney Spears gave it some juice this spring. The second new comedy, "Worst Week," is a single-camera show about a bungling magazine editor.

CBS, which is likely to drop to second behind Fox after several years as the nation's most popular network, will add three dramas in the fall.

"Eleventh Hour" is from the production team behind "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and won the Thursday 10 p.m. ET time slot behind that hit. It's about a brilliant biophysicist who helps the government investigate scientific crises.

"The Ex List" stars Elizabeth Reaser of "Grey's Anatomy" as a woman told by a fortune teller that she must marry within a year or be single forever. The catch: She's already met the man she'll marry, she just doesn't know it yet.

Simon Baker stars in "The Mentalist," about a former celebrity psychic who becomes a detective and uses his expertise at reading people to solve crimes.