Judge Judy has been renewed for three more years by the CBS and Fox owned television stations with Gray and Hearst also signing on for multiple years, CBS Media Ventures senior VP, domestic sales Greg Guenther said Wednesday.
The syndication-leading court show ended original production in 2021, but the show continues to air on TV stations in repeats. In the week ended February 4, Judge Judy averaged a 4.2 live-plus-same-day national household rating, according to Nielsen. That’s far ahead of the second-highest-rated court show, CMV’s Hot Bench, a panel court show created by Judge Judy Sheindlin herself, at a 1.3. This season, Judge Judy has been averaging 6.1 million total viewers, more than all other syndicated court shows combined, CMV said. In the week ended January 14, Judge Judy hit a viewership season high of 6.7 million total viewers.
“The Judge Judy library is a powerful force on stations across the country,” Guenther said in a statement. “It draws viewers and boosts stations’ lineups, improving its new time periods on average by +40% among total viewers.”
This fall, Judge Judy will be competing with itself in a way, with Sox Entertainment having cleared Sheindlin’s new show, Judy Justice, off of Amazon Freevee on stations in the Nexstar, Sunbeam, Cox Media, Weigel and Mission Broadcasting groups. Season three of Judy Justice began airing January 22 on Freevee.
CMV’s Judge Judy, starring Sheindlin, aired in broadcast syndication from 1996 to 2021. The show focuses on small claims disputes and featured Sheindlin’s no-nonsense rulings.
