A Man. And His Blog.

Mr. Pedowitz, the mission, should you choose to accept it, is bringing The CW back to its glory days, which have never existed before in the network’s history. Good luck.

What was I happy, when Dawn Ostroff decided to leave her position as president of The CW and go back home to her family. What was I happy, when Mark Pedowitz (his last name is really hilarious on a bad note – luckily I haven’t read many gags so far) decided to go for a bigger audience than just the teenie girls with braces. Over are the times, where the whole schedule is filled with teenie shows and similar. Done are the times, where The CW (hopefully) has to fight with no audience at all. Now there are two male-focused nights on The CW, and everything looks as if the network is going straight up-hill. I’d wish it would go straight up-hill…

MONDAY
8:00pm: GOSSIP GIRL
9:00pm: HART OF DIXIE

This night is going to be presented to you by Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage. And I don’t really mind that. I am fond of the two’s work, and I don’t despise it like most of the TV junkies. THE OC was wonderful teen drama in its first season, and GOSSIP GIRL can be (un)intentionally funny sometimes … okay, most of the times. HART OF DIXIE won’t be something new, though the description reminds me of NORTHERN EXPOSURE. The pairing with GOSSIP GIRL should work splendidly, and the audience should jump on Rachel Bilson’s new show. But there’s just the question, if enough viewers tune into GOSSIP GIRL to be a good lead-in for HART OF DIXIE. Because I think it won’t be enough. GOSSIP GIRL is already fighting an audience loss and has to deal with ~1.5 million viewers each week, which basically means HART OF DIXIE will get an audience below that number. Which also means the series won’t get a back-9 and C-Dub has to look for a replacement reality in the midseason.

Another question is if GOSSIP GIRL still has a long life to live. I was expecting the ratings to significantly drop during the first season, and even though they did, the series is still alive. Will the fifth season be its last? Most likely. Will the audience return for new episodes? Most likely not. So, C-Dub has to look for some good replacement this year, because I think this Monday will be completely changed in 2012 with both series dropped dead. Which is a shame for Rachel Bilson, I really want to see her develop to a seriously taken actress in a new TV show.

TUESDAY
8:00pm: 90210
9:00pm: RINGER

The same thing: 90210 lost viewers, and the fourth season will most likely be its last. Which lets me wonder, if the mainstream-appealed thriller RINGER will get a bigger audience than its lead-in. Sure, the Sarah Michelle Gellar project is airing against DANCING WITH THE STARS and a complete different-in-genre series as lead-in, but RINGER could perform very well for the C-Dub. Maybe even on THE VAMPIRE DIARIES levels. I don’t expect the show to hit three or four million viewers in its premiere, but since the former vampire slayer is a star in the targeted audience (A18-34 in this case), RINGER might hype through its lead actress. If RINGER is working creatively we have to see. And as long as it does, 90210 can run as bad in ratings as it wants to – should RINGER prove to be the successful series that day, it will clearly be renewed for a second season. And RINGER doesn’t even have a threatening competition: old/skewing crime on NBC and CBS, reality on ABC (it has the bigger audience, but it doesn’t perform well with the younger ones), and modest running comedy on FOX. There’s clearly something in it for RINGER in the targeted audience. Which makes it more logical why C-Dub placed RINGER behind 90210.

WEDNESDAY
8:00pm: H8R
9:00pm: AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL

It’s the day of reality, and thankfully it is. Another year with the reality/drama pairing wouldn’t have worked for C-Dub. I don’t care about either H8R (though I should watch the first episode, just to see if it’s hilarious on MTV levels) or AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL (which will deliver an All-Star season – which also means I might have to watch it at least for one cycle), so I basically don’t care about their ratings success. But C-Dub should hope to make the Wednesday reality-proof. Otherwise they have to order another new drama to place it before or after AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL. And how that worked out we were able to see with both THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE and HELLCATS in the last two years.

So, I hope Mr. Pedowitz has learned to establish Wednesdays as a reality-programming day. If he is ready to get rid of the top models, he can place some dramas on that day. But not before that.

THURSDAY
8:00pm: THE VAMPIRE DIARIES
9:00pm: THE SECRET CIRCLE

It should prove to be the most successful day on the C-Dub without any doubt. THE VAMPIRE DIARIES is still a hit and should stay that way for at least two years, and THE SECRET CIRCLE definitely wakes some interest in me. If both shows continue to be fast-paced and story-delivering, then both shows will get their audience. They are still tuning into THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, so why shouldn’t they tune into its “sister series”?

There’s just one problem: NIKITA was audience-skewing in the last year. It worked well during the first weeks, then the ratings dropped. It might not be NIKITA’s fault, since it was a creative success (for C-Dub’s standards; it still is a cheap ALIAS rip-off with plot holes), but since both NIKITA and THE VAMPIRE DIARIES didn’t really fit together with their targeted audience, that might have been the reason, why the spy thriller didn’t really work during the second half of the season. THE SECRET CIRCLE should have an advantage here – it is perfectly tuned with THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, and therefore should work perfectly with the lead-in. I would hope so, because I want to see the battle teenagers vs. adults in a world of witches and black magic.

FRIDAY
8:00pm: NIKITA
9:00pm: SUPERNATURAL

As expected, NIKITA gets its renewal and is paired with SUPERNATURAL. Both shows fit together perfectly, since they skew the male audience, and both shows should perform well on this night. NIKITA might deliver modest ratings in the targeted audience, which will probably mean C-Dub is switching the time slots for both shows in the midseason – because I’m not really sure, if NIKITA is able to work as a lead-in for an already solid program in its seventh year (and SUPERNATURAL won’t live long anymore). On a creative level both shows should perform well, and maybe NIKITA is going to be a critic’s favorite in its second year. The bloggers were recognizing Maggie Q during the last episodes of the first season, and it could only do good for the series, when the fans and critics are talking about the events in the show. In addition, NIKITA got some new fans during the final episodes because of that, and it seemed like it was the only bubble show during the upfronts, which the audience really, really (with an exclamation point) wanted to see renewed for another season. So, NIKITA might build on that in the fall.

So, that’s it with the Upfronts season. Some predicted moves (ABC, The CW), some unexpected ones (CBS), and some interesting battles lie ahead. During the next months, I will try to introduce all the freshman series to make you (and myself too) hyped for the start of the new TV season in September – together with expectations and all that crap. Other than that we have to wait until the pilot season begins again in December/January, just so we can talk about the Upfronts again.