If you look at the 1967-1968 TV schedule...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967%E2%80%9368_United_States_network_television_schedule
...you'll see that CBS had very few half hour comedies that weren't in the Top 30.
The half hour slots that were out of the top 30 were Hogan Heroes (which would last utill 1971), Petticoat Junction (which would last until 1970), and He & She and Good Morning World (both of which were kind of ahead of their time, but lasted only one season). Except for "Hogan's Heroes," which started at 9:00 PM, the three other shows started at 9:30 PM, which is really too late for a show like "Gilligan's Island."
They could have shifted one of their half hour slots earlier, but they also had to take into account how that would affect their success against other shows on that night. Juggling the whole schedule just because Bill Paley's wife liked "Gunsmoke" was probably not an option.
As I mentioned, "He & She" and "Good Morning World" were the only new half hour comedies on CBS in 1967. Both were attempts at more sophisticated comedy, à la "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and the later "Mary Tyler Moore Show," so it would be hard to see William Paley sinking them to save Gilligan. Notice that they were not willing to just put "Gunsmoke" into one of those slots and leave "Gilligan" alone.
One possibility would have been to ditch the new "Gentle Ben," which aired at 7:30 on Sunday - a perfect spot for Gilligan. As it turned out. "Gentle Ben" got very good rating in its first year, but was gone after its second.
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