A year ago, the former stars of the WB and UPN found themselves uncomfortably mingling on one stage for the first upfront of the new CW network. They looked like the kids at the wedding of two single parents.This year, the CW took a step toward developing its own personality, shedding the aging Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars (the longest-running unsuccessful show in prime time) and All of Us (the weakest link in its lineup of urban sitcoms). The network is even taking the teen out of teen-angst drama One Tree Hill. When that show returns in mid-season, the characters will have been fast-forwarded to their lives after college.The network is replacing All of Us with Aliens In America, a comedy about a Muslim exchange student coming to live in Wisconsin. It looks funny and a little provocative. Who would have thought the CW would have the first sitcom to deal with post-9/11 attitudes?Tuesday at 9 pm brings Reaper, about a slacker whose parents sold his soul to the Devil, played with a br...
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The question that has been keeping no one I know on the edge of their seat: What’s next for the CW, coming off its mostly dismal freshman year, in which the biggest news was made by posting closing notices on shows that had long ago peaked or lost much of their buzz (7th Heaven, Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, the latter still apparently having an itty-bitty chance of midseason resurrection). A year in which the closest thing to a new breakout hit that didn’t originate on either the WB or UPN was an insipid Pussycat Dolls reality show—slated for a midseason return, begging the question: How many Pussycat Dolls do we really need?It took the CW long enough to get busy in the reality game, which is actually rather puzzling considering its target demographic of young females has been weaned on the format on MTV, VH1, as well as the bigger networks. America’s Next Top Model has long been a signature show, first for UPN and now CW, and now the network is getting serious ...
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The trades are now reporting that The CW has greenlit new seasons of Smallville, Supernatural, One Tree Hill, Girlfriends and The Game, while All of Us is all done with. (Everybody Hates Chris earned a third season order earlier this spring.)There's no official word yet, one way or the other, regarding the fate of one plucky Veronica Mars — though the Ausiello Report, of course, has more on that see-saw sitch. — Matt Webb Mitovich
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File this one under Last Week's News: My Take, as this story broke while I was on vacay yet merits discussion. The annual "clutter report" issued by MindShare finds that among the Big Four, ABC litters its typical hour with the most nonprogram content — 15 minutes and 38 seconds' worth, a 12-second increase from its previous average. NBC came in second with 14:58, followed by Fox (14:40) and CBS (a lean, mean 13:51).I surfed around and couldn't find the CW's overall average, but as far as specific programs go, Supernatural is a most dubious No. 1 (tied with What About Brian) among all network offerings, ceding a full 17:50 of each hour to ads and in-house promos. In other words, nearly 30 percent of each Supe' hour has nothing to do with those Winchester boys. Who's the real demon now?Rounding out the "top" five cluttered programs were All of Us (17:40 per hour's worth), Housewives (17:35) and The War at Home (17:30/not nearly enough).
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The CW, the green offspring of the merged WB and UPN networks, is now five weeks old. That's a lifetime to the 18- to 34-year-olds it's targeting, so the Biz thought it was a good time to ask the CW's entertainment president Dawn Ostroff how it's going.
TVGuide.com: How do you assess the year so far?Dawn Ostroff: I think we're pretty happy with where we are. We got off to a solid start. What we said all along is that what we really want to see by the end of the season is to have a little bit of growth over what UPN or WB would have had. Right now we have a little bit of growth over them in 18- to 34-year-olds. We knew the migration was going to be a huge undertaking. The best way to describe it is that it would be as if you woke up one day and 67 percent of the country was told, "Oh, you're going to see CSI on a different channel." It's a big ordeal to move all of these viewers, tell them there is a new network, and tell them you need to find a new show on a new s
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