The CW
Tyra Banks and “America's Next Top Model” bring style to the new CW. |
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When the new CW network launches on Wednesday, its line-up will include “7th Heaven,” a family friendly drama that made its debut in August. Of 1996.
In fact, only two of the shows featured in the CW's fall schedule are new. Which makes perfect sense, because the CW isn't really new, either.
Less a fresh network than a reconfigured one, the CW is a result of the January merger between UPN and the WB, and those two struggling, youth-oriented networks provided the bulk of the CW's fall programming.
With a roster that includes the WB's 5-year-old “Smallville” and UPN's 3-year-old “America's Next Top Model,” the CW – which is owned by the CBS Corp. and Time Warner – is not exactly starting from scratch. But in a world of hundreds of TV channels and multiple media options, the creation of a new broadcast entity – even one with established programming – presents a fresh batch of challenges, no matter which side of the screen you're on.
For viewers and network executives alike, the first hurdle is all about location, location, location. In some cities – San Diego included – the new home of the CW will be the old WB channel. In others, the new CW channel will turn up where the old UPN outlet used to be. And there are cities in which the newcomer will appear on a channel that didn't belong to either of the old networks.
Given this confusion, the first order of CW business was getting audiences to find it. The network spent an estimated $50 million on a branding campaign, a blinding blitz that has slapped the CW's acid-green logo and photogenic young stars all over shopping malls, city buses and magazines. (Including Entertainment Weekly ads personalized for individual magazine subscribers.)
Another way to spread the word was to get motivated WB and UPN viewers on board, with the hope that where the fans go, the masses would eventually follow. So the new schedule is organized around theme nights, each of which is anchored by at least one proven WB/UPN hit.
Sundays are dedicated to comedy, with critics' darling “Everybody Hates Chris,” audience favorites “Girlfriends” and “All of Us,” and piggybacking newcomer, “The Game.”
Monday is family night, featuring the beloved “7th Heaven” followed by “Runaway,” a new drama about a photogenic brood on the run from the law.
Tuesday is ladies' night, with the successful and snappy “Gilmore Girls” giving a boost to “Veronica Mars.” The sharply witty teen-detective drama, which is filmed in San Diego, has yet to turn its critical raves into a ratings' bonanza.
Wednesday brings UPN rating's champ “America's Next Top Model” and the WB's brooding “One Tree Hill,” both of which score well with young female audiences.
Thursday is Über-hunk night, as the popular Superman drama “Smallville” leads into “Supernatural,” the ghost-hunting saga that made a solid debut on the WB last year.
Friday belongs to – what else? – wrestling, thanks to World Wrestling Entertainment's “Friday Night Smackdown.”
It is a line-up designed for young audiences, which leads us to the CW's next challenge. As the only broadcast network geared specifically to viewers 18-to-34 – a niche already being tapped by MTV, Comedy Central, and ESPN, among others – the CW is setting its sights on an audience that consumes massive amounts of music, television and on-line media, often all at the same time.
To snag these restless viewers, the network has developed the CW Lounge, a Web hangout where viewers can interact with their favorite shows in a number of promotionally friendly ways. They can chat with fellow fans; watch online-only content; download ringtones and other goodies; and even make their own videos, including “mash-up” collages using video clips from CW shows. Some of the homemade promos will end up on the air.
Recently, the network took its interactive show on the road with the “Mall Domination Tour,” which set up real-world versions of the CW Lounge in shopping centers across the country, including San Diego's UTC.
“You have to market (to younger viewers) where they live and where they are,” CW entertainment president Dawn Ostroff told reporters during this summer's Television Critics Association press tour in Pasadena.
“In the last few years with the Internet, it has become clearer that you have to be innovative. You have to think bigger. We have really worked to get inside their heads and get inside their lives.”
In what will probably be the most controversial addition to the network's media arsenal, the CW will be experimenting with an advertising concept it has dubbed “content wraps.” Like the Taster's Choice ads of the '90s, the content wraps are commercials that tell an on-going story. The wraps will feature real people in situations that are conducive to promoting real products, such as a guy and girl meeting for coffee, and then getting product-packed makeovers to prepare for their upcoming date.
The date would play out in 30-second “episodes” throughout one evening, with viewers getting to vote on the couple's future via the CW Web site.
According to Ostroff, the wraps reflect more than the advertisers' need to get their products seen and not TiVo'd through. They also reflect consumers' desire to get more products pitched to them in a whole new way.
“Who could possibly want that?” one skeptical TCA attendee asked Ostroff. And if the wraps look anything like the cheesy, low-budget sample shown to critics, viewers might be asking the same thing.
But at least they would be talking.
As the offshoot of two low-performing networks that were regularly trounced by ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox in the ratings, the CW is starting its new life with some weighty old baggage. So rumblings about tacky commercials are probably better than blasé silence.
Programming-wise, the new shows are a mixed bag. The moody “Runaway” is a promising mix of “Everwood”-style family drama and “24”-inspired cliffhanger action, but “The Game” is a predictable sitcom that under-serves its appealing cast and pro-football setting.
On the plus side, the best-of-both-networks approach has resulted in a strong line-up of returning shows. And because they have been given a second chance on a new, highly motivated start-up network, the creative teams behind many of the surviving programs have responded with format changes, plot tweaks and other improvements.
The season-long mysteries that made “Veronica Mars” engrossing for hardcore fans but bewildering for occasional visitors have been replaced by shorter mystery arcs that will wrap up throughout the season. On “Gilmore Girls,” the inexplicable personality change that turned the fiery Lorelai into a wimp last season will be rectified.
“Everybody Hates Chris” will feature a guest-star turn from Whoopi Goldberg, while the departure of actress Jill Marie Jones will give “Girlfriends” a chance to explore the way lost friendships can rock a social universe. And the creative brains behind “Supernatural” will be dealing with the fall-out of the fiery season finale, in which the car carrying the ghost-hunting Winchester brothers and their father was smashed to bits by a truck-driving demon.
Since they are the stars of the show, you can assume the Winchesters will survive. But as they battle demons from their past on the way to their uncertain future, Sam and Dean Winchester could be the perfect poster boys for their new network – young, good-looking and not planning to sit back and chill anytime soon.
“The hope is that there will be more eyeballs on us now, but we're aware of the challenges that come with that,” said “Supernatural” creator Eric Kripke at the CW's post-TCA party. “We've been putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to improve. This season, we need to break out in every way.”
