Editing CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (section)

=== Concept and development ===
During the 1990s, [[Anthony Zuiker]] caught producer [[Jerry Bruckheimer]]'s attention after writing his first movie script. Zuiker was convinced that a series was in the concept; Bruckheimer agreed and began developing the series with [[ABC Signature|Touchstone Television]]. The studio's head at the time liked the [[spec script]] and presented it to [[American Broadcasting Company|ABC]], [[NBC]], and [[Fox Broadcasting Company|Fox]] executives, who decided to pass.

The head of drama development at [[CBS]] saw potential in the script, and CBS had a [[pay-or-play contract]] with actor William Petersen, who said he wanted to do the ''CSI'' [[Pilot (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation)|pilot]]. CBS executives liked the pilot so much, they decided to include it in their 2000 schedule immediately, airing on Fridays after ''[[The Fugitive (2000 TV series)|The Fugitive]]''. After CBS picked up the show, the [[The Walt Disney Company|Disney]]-owned [[Touchstone Television]] (which was going to co-produce the series with [[CBS Productions]])  decided to pull out of the project, as they did not want to spend so much money producing a show for another network (ABC is also owned by [[The Walt Disney Company|Disney]]). 

With Touchstone Television out of the picture, CBS approached Canadian media giant [[Alliance Atlantis]] to step in as a co-producer, saving the show.<ref name="Touchstone">{{cite book|last1=Stewart|first1=James B.|title=DisneyWar|date=2005|publisher=Simon and Schuster|isbn=9780743283908|pages=[https://archive.org/details/disneywar00jame_0/page/307 307]–310|url=https://archive.org/details/disneywar00jame_0|url-access=registration}}</ref> CBS previously had had a number of business relationships with Alliance Atlantis and its predecessor companies before they had merged in 1998, including airing ''[[Due South]]'' (the first Canadian-produced series to air on an American network in primetime), many of the shows in the pre-1993 [[The CBS Late Movie|CBS Late Night]] block (including ''[[Night Heat]]''), first-run syndicated series distributed by CBS-owned distributor [[King World Productions|Eyemark]] such as ''[[Psi Factor]]'', and various TV movies and miniseries. Alliance also served as the Canadian subdistributor for CBS's program library.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Schneider |first1=Mike |last2=Adalian |first2=Josef |date=August 9, 2000 |title=Eye's maple leaf alliance |url=https://variety.com/2000/tv/news/eye-s-maple-leaf-alliance-1117784817/ |access-date=October 25, 2024}}</ref>

Initially, ''CSI'' was thought to benefit from ''The Fugitive'' (a remake of the [[The Fugitive (1963 TV series)|1960s series]]), which was expected to be a hit, but by the end of 2000, ''CSI'' had a much larger audience.<ref name="heaven">{{cite web |url=http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/csi.htm |title=CSI: Crime Scene Investigation |access-date=May 15, 2008 |author=Spadoni, Mike |date=June 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080520034821/http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/csi.htm |archive-date=May 20, 2008}}</ref> The show began on Friday at 9:00 following ''The Fugitive'', premiering on October 6, 2000, with an impressive 5.4 in the 18-49 demographic and 17 million viewers. The show hovered around that mark for the next 10 episodes. The final Friday episode, "I-15 Murders", aired on January 12, 2001. The show moved to Thursday at 9:00 following ''[[Survivor (American TV series)|Survivor]]'' on February 1, 2001, episode "Fahrenheit 932", and remained in that time slot until [[CSI: Crime Scene Investigation season 11|season 11]].