The CW gutted their net-lette. Only one show that debuted last fall will return this fall -- Hart of Dixie. And that's actually the least of their problems. Last week, we did an overview of ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and left out the CW -- intentionally as Jim noted in his "A note to our readers." The reason we did that is you can't group the CW with the others.
Not because it's a net-lette and not an actual network -- or not just because of that. When NBC was saying publicly that they would stick with The Jay Leno Show, we told you they wouldn't (while news outlets were saying they would) and we told you why. That's because we're apparently the only ones in the world aware that NBC may own a few stations but the bulk of its programming airs on affiliates. Unlike, for example, The New York Times, we spoke to affiliates and that's how we found out that the Leno show would be pulled. The affiliates couldn't take the bad ratings hit every night and were letting NBC know that they would lose that hour on the affiliate stations. With Leno tanking nightly, they had no lead-in for their local nightly news, where they make money on commercials, and the affiliates weren't going to stand for it.
While we were telling you about those realities, news outlets were quoting NBC execs stating things like the show was so cheap to make the ratings didn't matter. The ratings did matter to the affiliates. More than any other network or net-lette, the CW is a story of affiliates.
The only reason the CW has remained on the air the last three years was due to affiliate contracts. Those were long term contracts and many will be up for renewal in the coming years. We spoke to affiliates that are part of the Tribune Company and we spoke to affiliates that weren't. No one is happy with the ratings. If things don't improve quickly and dramatically, many plan to walk.
It wasn't supposed to have been turned out this way. The CW was born from the ruins of The WB and UPN. It was to replace them both and had its pick of the shows airing on both. But it made choices that telegraphed it had no clue what it was doing. It chose not to pick either Eve or Charmed. Eve would have fit in with the Sunday comedy block they were going for. And maybe it wouldn't have failed with Eve as opposed to, for example, The Game? Regarldess, Charmed delivered a Sunday audience for the WB. Without Charmed, The CW couldn't deliver Sunday ratings and, eventually, just stopped trying.
The scheduling choices themselves telegraphed that this wasn't going to be a network for women in scripted shows. Gilmore Girls was wrapping up its final season and it was paired with the UPN's chronically low-rated Veronica Mars which, even with a Gilmore lead-in, still couldn't get better ratings than it had on UPN.
This time last year, the net-lette was convinced it had figured out how to bring back the Charmed audience: The Secret Circle. But the Kevin Williamson show started off shaky and got much, much worse. There's a campaign to bring the show back and we wish it well but the claiming of "millions" of fans is a bit hard for a show that failed to deliver "millions" in the ratings. Among the biggest problems was the prudish drip Cassie who, sadly, was the show's centerpiece.
The Secret Circle wasn't the new Charmed, it was a Dawson's Creek update but the show lacked even one appealing male lead and all the actresses were more gifted than the series lead Brittany Robertson and each time the show went back to her and away from a subplot, the energy was sucked out of the room.
The Secret Circle was a weekly train-wreck and it's surprising it lasted as long as it did. They still don't understand the Charmed vibe as evidenced by the new programs offered this fall: Emily Owens, M.D., Arrow and Beauty and the Beast. In January, they'll begin airing the most likely to bomb The Carrie Diaries.
We'll start with the last one. This hour long show will replace Gossip Girl and follow the adventures of Carrie Bradshaw. "Great," you may think, "I loved Sex in the City!" Grasp that this show doesn't pick up where the series or the films left off. No, it wants to go back in time. Because what do kids love more -- teen girls are the target audience -- than the 80s?
If you found Carrie shallow -- and many did -- after 'insight' and 'realizations' from several seasons of Sex in the City, grasp that you're now going to see her without even that. In what world is a character popular with women in their 30s and 40s nearly 15 years ago, the ideal for a new series attempting to lure teens in?
Now it might work. And, if it does, who knows, maybe The CW can build a show around Dorothy Zbornak and Blanche Devereaux in the 1940s?
Meanwhile the old Beauty and the Beast fairy tale gets a(nother) modern-day update. They're putting this on Thursday nights and it's a sign of how bad things are ratings wise for The CW that most will be noting it's paired with its hit. Hit? The Vampire Diaries had its highest ratings in season one. In fact, this season's finale? Half as many people watched it as watched the show's series debut back in September 2009. When that's your hit, you've got serious problems. Meanwhile, Beauty and the Beast is a a risk but, at least there, if it pays off, it will be worth it. The Carrie Bradshaw show is going to alienate fans of the original series (it won't be able to follow the bible for Carrie created by the previous show). Arrow's another dumb move.
Arrow's hoping to bring back the Smallville magic. Smallville was about high school Clark Kent learning about his super powers and eventually becoming Superman. Series star Tom Welling was in his mid-twenties when he began playing underage Clark. Stephen Amell will be 31 when Arrow starts airing this fall and viewers see him playing Oliver Queen the Green Arrow. So the pre-teen and early teen audience is in doubt before a single episode airs. Add in that Green Arrow is not a comic book character that brings a huge following with him. So this show is really going to need to be smart and inventive. The creative talent offscreen doesn't make for high hopes. For example, we loved Eli Stone and No Ordinary Family but they didn't make for ratings successes.
Even worse for The CW is the fact that they want to pair this new Wednesday night show with Supernatural.. See Friday, with networks starting to walk away from the night, was becoming the CW's best night, most dependable, in terms of competing with the big three and Fox. Supernatural teamed with Nikita could have made gains this season. Fridays The CW was becoming a real threat to Fox. Now they're going to kick the night off with a dying reality show about fashion models and pretend that's compatible with Nikita which will move into the second hour time slot. In addition to screwing up Friday nights, it's asking a lot to expect Supernatural to go up against Modern Family (among others) on a new night.
This is a big deal to affiliates. They like both shows and they hoped they'd be kept together next fall so that they could build on the action-adventure audience they were carving out together. They would have been happy to stick with Ringer as well but they're not too crazy about the renewal of Hart of Dixie. What The CW has apparently never learned is that the affiliates will love teen operas provided they bring in the ratings. When they don't, you're dealing with a ratings loser and a show that most adults -- including those running the affiliates -- won't watch.
Not being fond of the lot-of-love-little-medicine mix of Hart of Dixie, they're already underwhelmed by Emily Owens, M.D. They're not crazy about the title, question Justin Hartley as a male lead since he couldn't parlay his Green Arrow on Smallville into his own superhero TV show and are, frankly, confused as to why Meryl Streep's daughter (Mamie Gummer) was cast in the lead on a CW show?
"Any hopes I had for this fall," we were told, "vanished at the upfront."
When you're at the bottom, you really need to dream big. When you're at the bottom, you should be shooting the dice and then some.
Affiliates have ideas for shows and don't feel they're listened to. They wonder why there's no animated programs? If nothing else, the WB half of the equation should be able to put together a "Wonderful World of Warners." Basically, a program utilizing the classic Warner Brothers cartoons. In other words, no new content at all. That actually does seem like an easy enough thing to pull off and beneficial to Warner Brothers. Would Disney be Disney today without The Wonderful World of Disney airing on network TV from 1954 to 2008? (The show aired on ABC, CBS and NBC.) That much talked of CIG film starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tweety Bird and others doesn't seem to be going anywhere but, if it ever does, wouldn't airing some of the classics on network TV had helped build awareness for the film?
There's also a feeling that while everyone else was flirting with music -- either singing or dancing -- The CW let it all pass by. Four different people described a program that sounded a lot like what MTV used to offer with Unplugged -- a bare bones music show.
When your ratings remain in the tank you really need to please the affiliates especially when the contracts will be expiring in a few years. "Instead," said one, "we're getting Meryl Steep's daughter. I don't think when she was starting out anyone saw her as a potential TV star so I'm left wondering how her lookalike daughter can be seen as one?"