Why the CW’s reported cuts are bad news for fans of DC and the Arrowverse

The CW continues to cut budgets, transforming the network in fundamental ways that will likely continue to frustrate DC fans of the Arrowverse. Just as DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn was taking to social media this weekend to allow The legends of tomorrow in the capital Fans know he sees them, some behind-the-scenes analysis in book He breaks down the ways Nexstar is bad for the 18- to 34-year-old genre TV fans who have made up the CW’s target audience in the years since. Smallville And the supernatural Make the brand full of the network.

Line TV ratings were taken an absolute blow at The CW around the time the Nexstar acquisition was first announced, and it probably doesn’t help Arrowverse fans who haven’t been involved in these ratings. star girl Now that many other DC shows are gone on the network or on the way out. But Line TV ratings are all the network is interested in right now, and for a reason we’ve touched on it many times before.

The CW has been running a deficit for years. Its relatively small audience doesn’t bring in CBS or Fox levels of advertiser revenue, and linear television across the board drops a lot as more and more audience members watch in time delays without ads, or wait until a show hits the broadcast so they can fully immerse themselves in their own time. This shortfall was accepted by the network’s previous owners – Paramount and Warner Bros. – Because of the other benefits provided by The CW.

As one of the preeminent spaces for genre television in North America, The CW provided a development ground for shows that would appeal to a young but incredibly loyal audience. These shows could then be exploited in other ways, be it a profitable trade or streaming deal, meaning that even if CW itself wasn’t profitable, WB and Paramount were generating a profit from the revenue the shows made. Recently, these lucrative streaming deals were skimped on in favor of using The CW to provide content for HBO Max and Paramount+ at virtually no cost to the parent companies’ internal streaming platforms.

Either way, superhero shows and other genre shows aren’t cheap — even on the CW level. Nor does Nexstar own any streaming service that wants you to fill in the content of the will; Instead, they want to take the elderly audience watching linear TV, and figure out how to directly meet the needs of those people so they don’t have a way to skip the ads.

Puck’s analysis concludes: “So no, the new CW won’t soon air all Greg Berlanti-produced YA shows or DC Comics adaptations, which can now run $4 million to $5 million per episode.” “In fact, many insiders are predicting that The CW will need its own coroner, wiping out most if not all of the more expensive stuff after this season.”

(The “Forensic Doctor” joke is a reference to the judgesa foreign series licenses the CW to broadcast so they can get new shows to the US without spending money on a true original.)

So yeah. star girl And the Sparkle After this season, and this breakdown does not look promising for the future Superman and Louis. It seems that the general feeling that the network is a sinking ship has already hurt viewers even more All Americans And the Walker It has seen a sharp drop in its viewership this season. Those shows, along with Superman and Louishas been among the network’s biggest hits in the past two years, so it’s likely that the long-awaited third season of Superman and Louis You will meet with a similar audience, regardless of their quality.

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