While if allegations are proven true that Moonves is a terrible person , then by all rights he should face punishment. I agree there but one claim has came out that Moonves started a decline of female driven TV shows and many point to the rise of CSI on the network. I'm gonna go year by year with this thread for shows that starred women and see what the decline and approval rate was.

I know the creator of Designing Women has said Moonves tried to ruin her career and stalled many successful shows. So lets examine this and some moves.


1995 - Leslie Moonves became President of CBS. The shows on the 1995 CBS schedule that featured women :


Almost Perfect (debuted September 1995 and ran 2 seasons)
Cybill (Debuted January 1995 and ran til 1998)
Bonnie Hunt Show (Debuted Sept 1995)
Touched by an Angel (Debuted before Moonves in 1994 but was on network til 2003)
Murder She Wrote *(This could be counted as a Moonves move that ended the long running series as ill explain)
The Nanny (before Moonves in 1993 and ran til 1999)
Can't Hurry Love* (This one debuted in Sept 1995 and was cancelled...will explain below as well)
Murphy Brown (began in 1988 and ran til 1998 , before his departure announced the series would return in 2018)
Courthouse (Debuted in September 1995 and ran 13 episodes)
Central Park West*
New York News *
Dweebs (Debuted 1995 , cancelled within 7 episodes)
Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman (Debuted before Moonves in 1993 and ended in 1998)





- Ok that was the schedule at the start of 1995. The ones with stars ill try and explain. Murder She Wrote had ran on CBS for over 11 years at that same schedule on Sunday nights. In fact the series had ran so long that Lansbury once was gonna leave the show and have it end , but CBS in 1989 convinced her for 2+ years to take a light schedule and the show did a rotating format focusing on characters she had introduced. Anyhow she came back in 1991 full time and in 1995 a key move Moonves made it appears was to change the time slot.

Perhaps it was a move to end a long standing series or maybe they thought people would watch Murder She Wrote against Friends. Instead it lost millions of viewers and by the end of the year was cancelled. CBS itself never really recovered from this dumb move on Sunday nights either. The show would get a few TV movies each year going into 2003.

Can't Hurry Love is a weird case. The show was a top ranked #24 rated show and it was doing a 11+ rating then following the Nanny at 8:30. But the decision to replace the series with a lesser draw in (Almost Perfect) is ...well kinda wild to see. New York News and Central Park West were 2 shows that heavily promoted Mary Tyler Moore and Mariel Hemmingway as main stars . You can debate on that one but this was an ensemble drama in both cases.




1996 - Moonves was fully in charge and maybe 1995 was him settling in. But here we go....


Pearl (Debuted in Sept 1996 and starred Rhea Pearlman , ran 1 season)
Temporarily Yours (Starring Debi Mazar , debuted in Sept 1995 , ran 6 episodes and cancelled)
FEDS (Debuted in 1997 , starred Blair Brown and cancelled within 3 months)
Orleans * (Starring Larry Hangman ran only 8 episodes in 1997 before being cancelled)


Orleans starred the legend from DALLAS who played J.R Ewing. But the show was notable that it was created by a former Louisiana judge's daughter Toni Graphia. She was the creator of this one. Other shows returned as we saw. They promoted Orleans heavy from what is claimed and CBS even gave it Dallas old time slot as well.



1997 -


Style & Substance (debuted in Sept. 1997 and cancelled within 5 episodes)
Four Corners (Debuted in 1998 , prime time drama/soap opera featuring female lead. Cancelled within 5 episodes)
The Simple Life* (Starring Judith Light it ran in summer 1998 and quietly cancelled)


Ok only 3 new shows debuted starring female leads and this is where its funny. The Simple Life was basically another version of ....Style & Substance and a rip on Martha Stewart it appears. Stewart its claimed hated the Style & Substance show and it quickly disappeared like this one did.


1998 -

Thanks (Debuted in August 1998 , cancelled within 6 episodes)
Maggie Winters (Starring Faith Ford and Shirley Knight , debuted in Sept 1998 and ran 16 episodes)
To Have and To Hold (Debuted Sept 1998 , starring Miora Kelly and cancelled within 9 episodes)



1999 -

Family Law (Starring Kathleen Quinlon , Dixie Carter and Julie Warner ...debuted Sept 1999 and ran 3 seasons)
Love & Money (Starring Paget Brewster , debuted in Sept 1999 and ran 6 episodes before being cancelled)
Judging Amy* (Starring Amy Brennaman and Tyne Daly , debuted Sept 1999 and ran 6 seasons !)






Its pretty clear that Judging Amy was the biggest success that Moonves had in 1990's as far as female shows go. The drama series ran 6 seasons and over 138 episodes. It also had a female creator involved.



In the next part ill examine the 2000's and what shows came about there.