Long story short, The CW was sold to Nexstar Media Group, Inc. The 75% ownership sale was rumored in the spring, announced in the summer, and finally made official on October 3, 2022. While the Warner Bros. and Paramount will each retain 12.5% ownership stake, the broadcast network is already starting to shed its old identity with a wave of cancellations and a change in leadership.
The History of The CW
Below is an abridged timeline of highlights from the sixteen-year history of The CW to provide some context of how we got here:
September 18, 2006 – Born out of the ashes of The WB and UPN, The CW officially launches. [1] See its inaugural program schedule.
September 19, 2007 – Much to the chagrin of the Parents Television Council, Gossip Girl debuts. (It would continue to draw ire from the PTC over the course of its 6-season run.) [2] XOXO
September 9, 2008 – After just two seasons, the long-running WWE program Friday Night SmackDown! airs its last episode on The CW. [3]
October 5, 2008 – In an effort to both save money and bolster viewership numbers on uber-competitive Sunday nights, The CW “rents” out their primetime block to Media Rights Capital (MRC) in a time-buy agreement. [4] Here’s a look at MRC’s programming for the Fall 2008 TV season, which spoiler-alert, would only last until November 23, 2008.
November 30, 2008 – The CW swiftly takes back Sunday night programming after the MRC agreement fails to net any positives for themselves or its affiliates. [5] Repeats and second-run theatrical releases fill the time. By 2009 they abandon Sunday nights altogether for many years to come.
September 10, 2009 – The Vampire Diaries, which would eventually sire two more spin-off series, makes its debut.
April 28, 2011 – Mark Pedowitz is appointed new President of The CW, superseding Dawn Ostroff, who presided over the network since inception. [6]
October 13, 2011 – The CW’s parent companies, CBS Corporation and the Warner Bros. Television Group, announce an agreement to a lucrative 4-year licensing deal with Netflix. [7]
October 28, 2011 – CBS Corporation and the Warner Bros. Television Group subsequently ink a 5-year agreement with Hulu providing them with next-day content from The CW and up to five episodes at a time for in-season shows. [8]
October 10, 2012 – DC’s connected TV universe, more commonly known as the Arrowverse, launches on The CW with the premiere of Arrow.
December 12, 2015 – The Tyra Banks era on The CW comes to a close with the finale of the 22nd cycle of America’s Next Top Model.
June 20, 2016 – CBS Corporation and the Warner Bros. Television Group announce the renewal of the previously mentioned Netflix deal for another four years. However, they decline to extend the Hulu deal. [9]
October 14, 2018 – With the season premiere of Supergirl and the series premiere of the Charmed reboot, The CW brings original programming back to Sunday nights for the first time in nine years. [10]
May 15, 2019 – The CW-Netflix deal is NOT renewed. Instead each studio will handle finding a streaming home for its individual shows, which could still be Netflix. [11]
November 19, 2020 – Supernatural, the last remaining series from The WB era, ends after 15 seasons and a total of 327 episodes.
October 2, 2021 – The CW expands to 7-night-a-week with the addition of Saturday programming for the first time in its broadcast history. [12]
May 12, 2022 – Dubbed “Red Wedding” day by TV writer and producer Julie Plec [13], The CW goes on a mass-cancellation spree at upfronts axing a total of 10 shows in the spring and several more before the year-end. Here’s a full list.
October 3, 2022 – The aforementioned sale of The CW to Nexstar becomes official. [14] With that news also came the announcement that Mark Pedowitz was departing the network. [15] Dennis Miller was named the new President of The CW.
November 2, 2022 – Nexstar names Brad Schwartz as President of Entertainment at The CW. [16] A search for an Unscripted Chief remains underway.
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Why Sell The CW?
In a nutshell, it seems like Warner Bros. and Paramount were finally ready to cut their losses after sixteen years of coming in last and losing money. But as with all entertainment dealings, there’s a lot more complexities than that. For a more complete breakdown of the sale to Nexstar, The CW’s financial history, and all that jazz, I encourage you to read this article from The Hollywood Reporter which does a much better job of explaining the business-side of things than I ever could. But yeah, bottom line, it was about money. After all, programming isn’t cheap.
What Will Air on The CW Now?
That’s the million dollar question for us viewers, however it also remains a mystery. The 2023 / 2024 TV season will offer up a rather large blank slate for Brad Schwartz to work with. Fourteen slots will be up for grabs, some of which may be occupied by existing properties, but I have to imagine we’ll be seeing a lot of new things too.
In a conversation with IndieWire about The CW’s future and a possible rebrand, Schwartz explained:
“What I’ve learned is you have to know what your house is before you know what color to paint it,” he said. “I think we have a lot of work to do to try and figure out: Who do we want to be? Who are the audiences we’re going to connect with? What type of content are we going to make to make those connections? We can figure out the paint color later. I think that’s Step 2.” [17]
Assuming Schwartz is not looking to repeat past mistakes or try insanity on for size, it’s very possible that The CW will no longer pigeonhole itself to YA fare. Which as we recently learned is already a farce. Apparently the average CW viewer is 58 years old. That’s a long way off from their supposed target audience of 18-34 year olds.
It’s not a secret that “kids these days” don’t watch live TV. Hell, even The CW wasn’t a denier. Hence the reason why the CW Seed existed. Unfortunately, just like the network itself, the streamer never became more than a blip in the crowded media landscape. As of this year, that content and its broadcast content are now one in the same on the free The CW app [18].
But as for the future of The CW as a streaming platform and / or a traditional broadcast network, I guess we’ll just have to stay tuned to find out. Cue the “to be continued” title card and fade to black… until next season.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_CW
[2] https://www.al.com/scenesource/2009/11/parents_television_council_urg.html
[3] https://corporate.wwe.com/news/company-news/2008/02-07-2008a
[4] https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-channel9-2008jun09-story.html
[5] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/cw-replacing-sunday-night-programming-50969/
[6] https://deadline.com/2011/04/its-official-mark-pedowitz-named-cw-president-126549/
[7] https://deadline.com/2011/10/netflix-signs-4-year-licensing-deal-with-the-cw-182444/
[8] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/cw-hulu-licensing-agreement-254743/
[10] https://ew.com/tv/2018/02/14/cw-expanded-schedule-sunday/
[11] https://www.thewrap.com/the-cw-netflix-deal-to-end-cw-shows-to-be-shopped-separately/
[12] https://variety.com/2021/tv/news/the-cw-saturday-night-launch-fall-2021-1234972898/
[13] https://twitter.com/julieplec/status/1524884416324984832
[15] https://deadline.com/2022/10/mark-pedowitz-farewell-message-the-cw-staff-exit-1235133350/
[16] https://www.nexstar.tv/the-cw-network-names-brad-schwartz-as-president-entertainment/
[17] https://www.indiewire.com/2022/11/the-cw-new-president-brad-schwartz-interview-1234778483/
[18] https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/the-cw-launches-a-new-app-combining-primetime-tv-and-cw-seed-series/
