25 Facts About The CW

1.

The CW marked its formal launch date on September 20, 2006, with the two-hour premiere of the seventh cycle of America's Next Top Model.

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2.

Additionally, The CW is available in northern Mexico through affiliates located near the Mexico–U.

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3.

The CW had already been responsible for shutting down Warner Bros.

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4.

Representatives for The CW later confirmed that it had chosen not to continue carrying SmackDown because the network had redefined its target audience as exclusively females 18 to 34 years old, whereas SmackDown targeted a predominantly male audience.

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5.

On several occasions, The CW was even outrated by the Spanish language network Univision.

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6.

On February 14, 2018, The CW announced that it would add a 2-hour primetime block on Sunday nights beginning in the fourth quarter of 2018, returning the network to Sundays for the first time since the lease to Media Rights Capital ended in 2009, as well as expanding The CW's primetime slate from 10 hours a week to 12.

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7.

DC Universe and The CW co-financed the series, with episodes premiering on DC Universe and airing the next day on The CW.

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8.

The first hint of this occurred in May 2022, when The CW unveiled a fall schedule in which, for the first time, the number of shows renewed were outnumbered by those receiving cancellations: Ten shows (three times the average number per year that The CW had canceled over the previous decade) were axed, including one-season shows 4400 and Naomi, and longtime fixtures Batwoman, Charmed, Dynasty, In the Dark, Legends of Tomorrow, Roswell, New Mexico, and Legacies.

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9.

Nexstar executives cited data indicating that the young audience to which The CW has long catered tends to watch the network's shows through streaming platforms instead of live-to-air, and that the average audience of a broadcast CW affiliate is approximately 58 years old.

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10.

On May 12, 2021, executives with the CW Network announced it would start offering prime-time programming seven days a week for the first time since the broadcast network launched in 2006.

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11.

Television and CBS Corporation, The CW announced that it would discontinue the Kids' WB block due to competition from cable channels aimed at the demographic such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, and would sell the programming rights to the network's Saturday morning block to 4Kids Entertainment (which at the time of the announcement, had produced a competing children's programming block, 4Kids TV, for Fox).

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12.

On June 5, 2014, The CW announced an agreement with Litton Entertainment to program a block of live-action series designed to comply with the FCC's educational programming guidelines.

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13.

The CW returned the two hours of reclaimed time to the affiliates.

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14.

The CW maintains a sizeable number of subchannel-only affiliations, the majority of which are with stations in cities located outside of the 50 largest Nielsen-designated markets and receive the network's programming via The CW Plus; the largest subchannel-only CW affiliate by market size, as of May 31, 2017, is KFMB-TV DT2 in San Diego, California.

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15.

The network has affiliated with some digital subchannels, usually those launched by a local Big Four affiliate as a new service, in several other markets – especially if fewer than six commercial television stations existed at the time of affiliation, requiring The CW to carry its programming on a subchannel by default.

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16.

Announcement of The CW caused the largest single shakeup in U S broadcast television since the affiliation alliance between Fox and New World Communications in 1994 and the subsequent launches of UPN and The WB the following year.

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17.

In markets where The WB and UPN were carried on separate stations, one of the two local outlets was left out in the merger; most of the stations that did not join The CW had signed affiliation agreements with MyNetworkTV instead, while others elected to become independent stations.

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18.

WISH-TV in Indianapolis, as it had during its CBS affiliation, continues to brand solely with its channel number and calls as "WISH-TV 8", with "The CW" appended where appropriate, usually only in print and radio advertising.

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19.

In markets like Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; Honolulu, Hawaii; Palm Springs, California; Beaumont; Waco and Corpus Christi, Texas, where The CW is broadcast on a digital subchannel of one of the market's major network affiliates, there were unsuccessful attempts in getting Time Warner Cable to carry the subchannel affiliates.

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20.

Some affiliates eventually signed carriage deals with Time Warner Cable, but not all of the CW affiliates received carriage on the provider's basic cable tiers.

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21.

On-air branding that excised the CW name began being implemented by the stations in July 2008, either on-air or through their websites (as part of a redesign for all of the Tribune stations' websites).

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22.

The CW affiliation moved to WPWR-TV, a Fox Television Stations-owned MyNetworkTV station.

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23.

The CW previously imposed a three-day delay after an episode's original airdate before making its programs available on its website and through the Hulu subscription service.

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24.

The four-year Netflix agreement allowed its customers to instantly watch more than 700 hours of previous seasons of The CW's current scripted series, while Hulu inked a five-year deal, giving the streaming site access to next-day content from four of the five major networks.

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25.

On October 24, 2012, The CW entered into its first video-on-demand distribution deal with a pay television provider through an agreement with Comcast that allows customers to watch the four most-recent episodes of the network's primetime shows on the cable provider's Xfinity On Demand service, along with next-day episode content.

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