CBS (NYSE: CBS-A) has landed CSI star William Petersen for a ninth season, as after long negotiations the parties have arrived at an agreement they both can live with.
Assuming Petersen wants to keep on with the show, he'll have to go through this again with CBS, as the contract is only good for a year and ends in May of 2009.
It looks like Petersen will be appearing in this year's show in a similar fashion as he did in the 2006-2007 season, where he was gone in the middle episodes from a commitment to a play he starred in.
This year he has committed to another play in Chicago, which will run from November 13 to December 21; meaning he'll probably miss a large segment of the midseason again.
Terms of the deal are he'll make somewhere in the neighborhood of $600,000 an episode. That keeps him in the ranks of one of the higher paid television actors.
While Petersen is probably the most recognized actor on the series, fans still flock to it to see the crimes and how they're solved, rather than the actors themselves primarily. So both CBS, fans and Petersen have a win/win/win situation, with Petersen offering some continuity to the series while doing what he wants to do on the side.
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