Criminal Minds premiered as a TV show.
CBS ( an initialism of the network 's former name , the Columbia Broadcasting System ) is an American English language commercial broadcast television network that is a flagship property of CBS Corporation . Criminal Minds is an American police procedural crime drama television series created by Jeff Davis , and is the original show in the Criminal Minds franchise . It premiered on September 22 , 2005 , on the broadcast network CBS and October 5 , 2005 on CTV . The show spawned two spin-offs : Criminal Minds : Suspect Behavior ( 2011 ) and Criminal Minds : Beyond Borders ( 2016 -- 2017 ) .