CW Fall: This One Goes Out to the Ladies

With The CW’s schedule announcement today, the final piece of the fall puzzle has been put in place. Now that the network has abandoned Sunday night (last year’s experiment of selling the programming rights to Media Rights Capital was an instant disaster and the follow-up solution of Jericho repeats and a collection of mostly unknown MGM movies was not a step toward affiliate happiness) and only has ten hours to fill, you’d think they could develop a lineup loaded with original content. Instead, we get remakes and copycats, and somehow they’ve managed to still find a slot for a low-rated encore of America’s Next Top Model (what they save in production costs by doing this, they lose in viewer tune-out). In any event, the three new series CW will be launching in the fall are perfectly designed to appeal to the network’s core audience of women 18-34, but may have trouble extending beyond that base.

THE CW's 2009-2010 PRIMETIME SCHEDULE

MONDAY
8:00-9:00 PM GOSSIP GIRL
9:00-10:00 PM ONE TREE HILL

TUESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM 90210
9:00-10:00 PM MELROSE PLACE

WEDNESDAY
8:00-9:00 PM AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL
9:00-10:00 PM THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE

THURSDAY
8:00-9:00 PM THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
9:00-10:00 PM SUPERNATURAL

FRIDAY
8:00-9:00 PM SMALLVILLE
9:00-10:00 PM AMERICA'S NEXT TOP MODEL (encores)

Mondays stay the same with the most buzzed-about show no one is watching, Gossip Girl, once again leading into One Tree Hill, which will have to operate next season without stars Chad Michael Murray and Hilarie Burton, who couldn’t come to terms during contract negotiations. The “success” of Gossip Girl continues to be one of CW’s great spin stories, as the network routinely touts its female demo performance, but chooses to overlook the fact that the show barely breaks the two-million mark in total viewers. A breakout hit this is not, which may account for the decision not to go ahead with the proposed spinoff.

CW execs looked at a season’s worth of low ratings for their 90210 remake and decided that, not only was it a good idea to renew this clunker, but it should be paired with a remake of spinoff Melrose Place for a Tuesday lineup that calls up memories of Fox in the mid-‘90s. There may be some initial curiosity in seeing this duo together again (and in whether Melrose’s Ashlee Simpson-Wentz can carry a show), but once the novelty wears off, look for both shows to careen to the bottom of the Nielsen heap.

America’s Next Top Model maintains its long-held Wednesday berth, and is being followed by a new drama from executive producer Ashton Kutcher, The Beautiful Life. A look inside the world of fashion models, Life is responsible for bringing Mischa Barton (The O.C.) back to prime time; it also stars Corbin Bleu from the High School Musical movies. With compatible subject matter, this show might have the best shot yet at holding onto the audience generated by Top Model.

Thursdays kick off with two vampire brothers fighting for the love of a teenage girl in the new drama The Vampire Diaries. If CW had beaten Twilight out of the gate with this one, they might stand a better chance at attracting an audience. As it stands now, it just looks like they’re trying to capitalize on a craze. This type of show will always have a cult following, but at this point, CW needs more than that to break out of their slump. After Vampire, Supernatural returns in its regular slot.

Smallville has the unenviable task of bringing viewers to the afterthought known as the network’s Friday lineup. Heading into season nine, it’s a risk to move a show that is so long in the tooth (that’s why NBC never moved ER). It feels like a throwaway move to me, especially since it’s coupled with the aforementioned unnecessary Top Model encore.

If you ask me, targeting such a narrow demographic is dangerous for a broadcast network (maybe they're using the wrong definition of “broad”). What works for a niche cable network like Lifetime or Oxygen is clearly not translating to anything bigger for The CW (there are occasions when those cablers are actually capable of bringing in millions more viewers than The CW does), and with a slate of largely interchangeable serialized dramas, this probably won’t be the year that the network’s fortunes take a turn for the better.