The CW’s latest plan to regain relevance is, uh, true crime?
Free from the popularity of superheroes, The CW is looking to do its own version of Dateline
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We are officially living in in a world with a post-Arrowverse CW, and the network—with its new owners, Nexstar—is focusing in on its vision for a future free from superheroes, Winchesters, and… you know, other shows that people actually liked. A few months ago, The CW got in bed with a certain reputation-laundering golf tour, an explicit nod to Nexstar’s goal of skewing more closely to its ideal viewer (58-year-old men with bad taste), and now we know the next phase of its plan: Getting into true crime, the hottest trend of two or three years ago.
This comes from Deadline, which says The CW is working on “its own version of NBC’s Dateline, CBS’ 48 Hours, and ABC’s 20/20”—and you can tell this is a good idea because it’s already been done a bunch of times already. But that’s not just Deadline saying that, it’s The CW’s head of unscripted programming, Heather Olander, who specifically named those other shows while explaining that The CW is still trying to find an “overall brand” under which it can “insert all sorts of different crime stories.” What that basically means is that she wants The CW to literally do the Dateline/48 Hours/20/20 thing. There are no greater aspirations beyond that.
As for why true crime, Olander makes a pretty clear case for it: “What’s nice about true crime is it can also be scaled, you can do a lot of episodes, and it’s very efficient.” She even mentioned that it’s not a problem if they end up covering a true crime that someone has covered before, because if they can find one new detail or talk to one new person in a story that everyone has heard “a dozen times” it still “pulls in audiences.”
Now look, we know that making television is a business, especially for executives who aren’t necessarily in the trenches of production, but this was once a network that made art, you know? Serial killers and time travel on Riverdale, love triangles upon love triangles upon love triangles on The Vampire Diaries, “I Go To The Zoo” from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Super Hell on Supernatural. That was beauty. This is… efficient.
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Obviously Warner owns the DC Comics characters, but nothing is stopping Nextar from continuing the Arrowverse with their own iconic comic book characters like, uh, “Shmarrow” or “The Flatch.”
Oh man I can’t wait for Legends of Next Week!
I suspect they mistakenly believe they don’t have to pay writers for these.
Do you mistakenly think that the writers at Dateline are WGA?
Put simply, “This channel made TV for people who do not watch TV. And we’re going to make TV for people who watch TV instead.” It’s sad, but not their fault that the people who watch TV like to watch dreary fucking sludge.
Their plan isn’t to regain relevance. Their plan is to be a lower cost, profitable minor network. There are actually quite a few of them out there. They are off your radar but they are actually making more money than most of the streamers right now.As for the CW, they were only relevant to ferret girls pushing 40 and the network was in fact never profitable and it was never meant to be profitable. It existed solely as a tool for Paramount and Warner Bros. to create content that could then be sold to secondary platforms and broadcasters. Congratulations A.V. Club. You’ve become your great grandfather still complaining about how they canceled “Bonanza.”
The ironic thing is that I am literally a 58-year-old male, and I watched the heck out of the old CW. Once “Superman & Lois” is gone, I’ll likely never watch it again.
“The ironic thing is that I am literally a 58-year-old male, and I watched the heck out of the old CW.”
Aging manchild watched all the CW comic books shows.This and other utterly baffling and shocking facts on tonight’s episode of “No Fucking Kidding?!!?!?!?!??!?!”
New CW management looked at the their teen-targeted programming that was pulling in a surprising amount of older viewers and said “So what we should do is…make shows for an older demographic.”You were already doing that! The older viewers liked the snarky-but-earnest superhero stuff and the glossy young adult dramas, they’re not going to stick around when you start making budget NCIS and Dateline! Because they can just go watch The Real McCoy NCIS and Dateline if that’s what they want! You idiots, you clods.
I did too, mostly because they had a lot of genre television that the other networks didn’t. I’ll miss that.
“The CW’s latest plan to regain relevance is, uh, true crime?”And that’s deserving of mockery because *checks notes* nobody likes true crime?
If the CW wants to become relevant, they should just enter that Tier 1 deal with the Pac 12. A little college football and basketball won’t hurt.Besides they already have a deal with LIV Golf. What’s the worst that could happen?