USA TODAY International Edition
10 years of CW
The network is no longer TV’s new kid on the block
The CW network is turning 10. The mini broadcast network, which programs 10 hours of prime- time a week, was born in September 2006, after Warner Bros. folded WB and CBS shut down UPN, merging their assets into a newly branded mishmash. Its first season marked an uncomfortable blend of black family sitcoms and America’s Next Top
Model, inherited from UPN, and soapy female- focused WB dramas including Gilmore Girls and One Tree Hill.
A year later, Gossip Girl arrived as the network’s first homegrown hit, and the network began aiming squarely at young women and teenage girls.
Not every show worked — a remake of Melrose Place was a quick flop — but the focus became too narrow just as technology began sparking changes in viewing habits, as younger viewers, especially, began migrating to new platforms. ( Now, more than half its viewership is delayed by DVRs or CW’s streaming app.)
After several years of targeting young women, “the advertising well ran dry as far as brands wanting that market,” says Sam Armando, analyst at ad giant Publicis Media in Chicago.
When Mark Pedowitz replaced UPN’s former chief as CW’s president in 2011, “no matter what decision we made, it didn’t seem to work,” he recalls. So he tried a pivot away from serialized soaps to mimic bigger networks with “pro- cedural” series that could stand alone week to week or in repeats. But the quick demise of 2012’ s
Emily Owens, M. D., a medical series starring Mamie Gummer, taught him a hard lesson: “We learned who we were not. ... That no one was going to come to us for a procedural show,” he says, and that high- concept, serialized genre series aimed at a broader audience — including more men — was the way to go.
Around the same time, Netflix and Hulu became major forces in television content, spending billions of dollars on reruns and favoring the kind of serialized shows CW viewers preferred. CBS and Warner Bros. still value the network as a launch pad for shows they can sell to streaming services, which were “instrumental in buttressing the life of CW,” Pedowitz says. The deals helped scotch rumors of the network’s demise by ensuring a big new source of revenue and easing pressure on ratings.
Supernatural, which begins its 12th season Thursday and is the lone remnant of WB ( which aired its first season), became a key part of that strategy as it helped launch other series including The
Vampire Diaries, which ends this spring after an eight- year run.
DC Comics’ Arrow, which premiered in 2012, begat The Flash, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and Supergirl, which began last fall on CBS but moved Monday to CW, where its second- season opener claimed 3 million viewers, a solid showing. Pedowitz describes the upcoming Riverdale, a dark take on Archie comics characters from DC producer Greg Berlanti, as a more adult cross between Twin Peaks and The O. C., but “we don’t want to be overly defined as a comic book network,” he says.
So a parallel track of high- concept dramedies, including Jane the Virgin, Crazy Ex- Girlfriend and this fall’s No Tomorrow, cater to a different ( though smaller) audience. And for next season, the network is developing remakes of Dynasty, from the producers of Gossip Girl, and The Lost Boys.
Says Armando: “Programs that don’t have vampires or superheroes, that’s what they have to do.”