Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, showrunners of the comedy sitcom Ghosts, have announced that they have entered into a three-year agreement with CBS Studios. Collectively known as “the Joes,” the pair have worked on popular sitcoms such as The Office, The Odd Couple, and New Girl before premiering Ghosts on CBS in 2021.
Ghosts, originally based on a 2019 British sitcom of the same name, first premiered in October 2021. The eighteen-episode first season features Rose McIver (iZombie) and Utkarsh Ambudkar (Tick, Tick…Boom!) as Samantha and Jay Arondekar, who inherit a beautiful, old country house from Sophia Woodstone (Tacey Adams), a recently-deceased distant relative of Samantha’s. The couple has plans to open up a quaint bed & breakfast in the house, but their plans are interrupted when Samantha suffers a near-death accident and wakes up able to see and hear the ghosts haunting their home. The ghosts include Trevor Lefkowitz (Asher Grodman), a partying Wall Street tycoon and the most recent dead, Hetty Woodstone (Rebecca Wisocky), the house’s original owner, and Thorfinn (Devan Chandler Long), a Viking and the eldest ghost, along with a group of six others.
The Story Behind the Deal Between ‘Ghosts’ Showrunners and CBS Studios
According to Deadline, Ghosts was ranked as CBS’s top new series in the 2021-22 year and has tied with Young Sheldon (2017) as the most-watched comedy for adults aged 18-49, in addition to being the top-ranked comedy on Paramount+, CBS Studios’ streaming platform. Following Ghosts’ success, CBS Studios has chosen to enter into a three-year deal with Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, the series’ showrunners, but even Port admits that the studio was taking a risk with them at first.
“The entire company has been so supportive of the show, right from the start,” Port told Deadline. “CBS took a really big swing, one that most broadcast networks at the time wouldn’t have done. And they marketed the hell out of the show. Seeing a Ghosts ad during a Steelers game was probably my career highlight thus far.”
Regarding the deal, Kate Adler, a CBS Studios executive, told Deadline, “The Joes are the best…We have been fans of their smart, sophisticated humor for a long, long time. It’s a joy to work with them.”
The first season of Ghosts can currently be found on Paramount+ and CBS; a second season was announced in January 2022, but no further information has been released at this time.