NCIS New Orleans ratings for Nov. 12: Season 6 drops after cast exit

"Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom" - Following a natural gas explosion at a movie theater, the NCIS team discovers the gas company has been hacked and more explosions could be triggered, on "NCIS: NEW ORLEANS," Tuesday, Nov. 12 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured L-R: Amanda Warren as Mayor Zena Taylor and CCH Pounder as Dr. Loretta Wade Photo: Sam Lothridge/CBS ©2019 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
"Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom" - Following a natural gas explosion at a movie theater, the NCIS team discovers the gas company has been hacked and more explosions could be triggered, on "NCIS: NEW ORLEANS," Tuesday, Nov. 12 (10:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Pictured L-R: Amanda Warren as Mayor Zena Taylor and CCH Pounder as Dr. Loretta Wade Photo: Sam Lothridge/CBS ©2019 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

NCIS: New Orleans ratings were down on Nov. 12 for the first episode without one original star. See the latest NCIS: New Orleans numbers.

NCIS: New Orleans ratings dropped in the wake of Lucas Black’s departure from the CBS crime drama.

The live audience for Tuesday’s episode “Boom-Boom-Boom-Boom” was 6.4 million viewers, and that was less than the prior week’s 6.61 (-0.21, or 210,000 fewer people).

That made it the only CBS drama on Tuesday to lose viewers; both NCIS and FBI gained audience members this week.

But it’s not specifically attributable to Black’s character Christopher Lasalle being written out of the series. The decrease continues New Orleans‘ downward trend; it had been at 6.72 million two episodes ago.

More from NCIS: New Orleans News

That doesn’t mean some TV crime drama fans didn’t tune out in Black’s absence, but it means that the problem already existed before he left the show.

As we’ve discussed before, NCIS: New Orleans has tended to be the lowest-rated program in CBS’s Tuesday night crime block, which might be why the network is moving it to a new night and time after it finishes the first half of Season 6.

But more than 6 million viewers is still considered a successful show, and New Orleans still holds a clear advantage over its competitors in the 10 p.m. time slot; the runner-up, NBC‘s medical drama New Amsterdam, is more than a million eyeballs behind.

More: Why Lucas Black left NCIS: New Orleans

It’s also a step behind in the key demographic on what’s a highly competitive night. The latest episode had a 0.6 share among adult viewers 18-49, which was only good enough to tie it for ninth place of the 15 shows that aired on broadcast TV this Tuesday.

It tied with ABC‘s Dolly Parton: Here She Comes Again special.

That number is also down 0.1 week-to-week. But here’s how tough the night is in that category: lead-in FBI had a 0.7, and that extra tenth tied it for fifth. So the difference between the Top 5 and hanging onto the Top 10 is literally a tenth.

It’ll take another week to see if these lower ratings are the new normal for a post-Lucas Black New Orleans or if this was just a rough outing for the show, but with it moving to a different time slot soon, it’s also not something to get too worried about. Only if these numbers follow it after the midseason break will there be a huge problem.

NCIS: New Orleans Season 6 continues next Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.