Tom Selleck Was Never Concerned About Blue Bloods Airing On Friday Nights

In the decade-plus it's been running, "Blue Bloods" has changed a lot. Certain characters have come and gone, others have achieved new career heights, and the inner workings of the Reagans' NYPD home have shifted. However, one element of the show that hasn't changed from its very beginning is its time slot. "Blue Bloods" has consistently aired on Friday nights at 10 p.m. for essentially the span of its entire run, and if you're familiar with the cable TV landscape, you'll know that's considered a fairly admirable feat.

It's well-established that the Friday night TV slots have a reputation for being one of the most undesirable times that a show can air. The general idea is that many people who make plans to go out on the weekend won't be tuning in to the major networks that night, so it's ostensibly far more difficult to match the success and popularity of shows that air earlier in the week. However, even when "Blue Bloods" was first starting out, Tom Selleck apparently never had any concerns about the series occupying this slot.

In a 2010 interview with Collider right around the time that "Blue Bloods" first began on CBS, Tom Selleck spoke about his earliest days working on the show. Surprisingly, the actor didn't express any fears about the series' Friday night slot affecting its popularity. "If it's good, people will probably watch," he said. "It's out of our hands anyway. I'm just delighted to be on the air."

Notably, Selleck also mentioned that he already had experience being on a show that had beaten the ratings odds. The actor was the star of the original "Magnum P.I." throughout the 1980s, and though the show historically aired on Thursday nights (which were one of the lowest viewing night slots at the time, Selleck notes), it still proved to be a massive success. "That was a good lesson for me," the star said.

Selleck's confidence about "Blue Bloods" proved to be well-founded. The procedural series managed to become a breakout success from the onset, accumulating a respectable 12.58 million viewers across its first season. That popularity endured, as "Blue Bloods" has managed to achieve rock solid ratings for over 10 years since, and it's rarely ever deviated from its original Friday night slot. In fact, CBS won the charts in total viewership with the "Blue Bloods" Season 13 premiere, which managed over 6.4 million viewers (via The Wrap). All told, it's safe to say that "Blue Bloods" has beaten the Friday night curse.