We gotta move all these shows about sexy teenagers played by sexy 20-year olds, EVERYTHING MUST GO.
Ah, The CW. Ever since you were cobbled together from the remnants of The WB and UPN by Warner Bros. and ViacomCBS, you’ve provided us with some incredible highs and abyssal lows. And now that the era of Cable 2.0 streaming, neither company sees fit to continue on with you. So onto the auction block you go.
The news broke last night. Employees found out from a memo sent to them by network CEO Mark Pedowitz. It reads:
To Our Valued CW Team
I am sure you have seen the recent speculation in the press around The CW, so I wanted to take the opportunity to address this with you directly and share with you what we know.
First, as many of you are aware, over the past year or so, this transformative time in our industry has led to a series of business activity across media and content companies. Given that environment right now, ViacomCBS and Warner Bros. are exploring strategic opportunities to optimize the value of their joint venture in The CW Network.
It’s too early to speculate what might happen, but we promise to keep you updated as we learn more.
So, what does this mean for us right now? It means we must continue to do what we do best, make The CW as successful and vibrant as we have always done. We have a lot of work ahead of us – with more original programming than ever, this season’s expansion to Saturday night, our growing digital and streaming platforms – and we thrive when we come together and build The CW together.
Mark
Mark Pedowitz, CW Network CEO
Basically, Warner has HBO Max. ViacomCBS has Paramount+. While the actual particulars of what selling the network will actually mean for the network, it’s no longer in either party’s interests to keep things going as they had been. Especially when the content they were producing for the ad-driven CW could probably be put to better use for either company on their own streaming services. Previously, they’d had a deal that sent a number of these shows to Netflix, which actually boosted viewer numbers for new seasons of stuff like Riverdale. That deal ended in 2019, though, and took a huge chunk of change out of the network’s pocket when it did.
So the question you’re probably asking yourself is: who’s going to buy it? And the likely answer, at least according to The Hollywood Reporter, is Nexstar. They already run a number of CW affiliates across the country, so they’re considered the front runners.
Source: The AV Club
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