It would certainly be a shame if CBS does cancel the show. And they certainly may because, even though
Moonlight has come in first in its time period for the past three weeks, its ratings drop significantly from
Ghost Whisperer and
Numbers' ratings rebound to almost always be higher than GW's - and networks often tend to not like that, no matter how well the dropping show may actually rank. For example, insanely in many people's opinions, NBC has canceled Top 10 programs simply because their ratings were lower than the show that preceded them and the show that followed.
On the other hand, if the debacle with the '04 DS pilot taught us anything, it should be not to necessarily believe almost anything so-called "insiders" say because more insiders than I can even recall now felt it was a shoe-in for a pickup (some actually "sneaked" schedules that showed what night and time DS was going to appear on the WB), but we all know how things actually played out.
So...
Interestingly, if CBS does indeed cancel
Moonlight in favor of
The Unit, that might very well be another situation that many people will think is insane because
Moonlight's advertiser-loving 18-49 demos are quite high, whereas
The Unit's are practically nonexistent.