The CW: Making Noise with Dramas

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Coverage: Upfronts 2013

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CW: Making Noise With Dramas

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here to view the fall primetime schedule grid.

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here to view pilot clips and trailers from the networks new shows.

STRATEGY: Continue broadening 18-to-34 viewer

base with noisy new dramas and again launch the fall season in October to avoid

the clutter and reduce repeats.

The CW will shake up its primetime lineup next season, making changes on all

five nights of its schedule and premiering three new dramas: The Vampire

Diaries spinoff The Originals, sci-fi series The Tomorrow People

and Reign, about a young Mary Queen of Scots.

The high-concept entries are part of The CWs evolution from a network that

used to be stocked with high school soaps starring young, beautiful people (the

beautiful people are still there), a move based on the success of this seasons

comic book-inspired Arrow, a breakout freshman hit.

You have to make noise, CW president Mark Pedowitz said at a press conference

following the networks upfront presentation on May 16. Its very hard these

days to make noise with smaller, softer shows.

Reign will get the networks top launch pad out of The Vampires

Diaries on Thursday to capitalize on the heavy female skew of both shows. The

Tomorrow People will premiere out of Arrow, making Wednesday a family

night, Pedowitz joked, because the stars of each series are cousins Stephen

and Robbie Amell.

The Originals will anchor Tuesdays, a scheduling decision made because we

believe that those characters are well known, Pedowitz said. Originals will

be followed by Supernatural, shifted up from Wednesdays. Pedowitz hopes

the franchise can bring more viewers to the night where Ringer, Cult and

Emily Owens, M.D. have failed in recent seasons.

Hart of Dixie will also move up a night to Monday to lead into sophomore

Beauty and the Beast, while Sex and the City prequel The

Carrie Diaries relocates to Friday, paired with Americas Next Top Model.

The network also announced that this will be the final season of Nikita,

which gets an abbreviated sixepisode order to wrap up its story, with a

premiere targeted for late fall.

The CW will again launch its fall season in October, as it did last year to

avoid the crush of September premiere week and keep more originals on the

schedule through midseason.

It worked for us, Pedowitz said. It allowed us to market shows away from

everybody. It makes our schedule tighter, and we need to do that.

For midseason, the network has two more sci-fi projects -- Star-Crossed

and The 100 -- as well as a new reality series from TMZ called Famous

in 12, which tasks one family with achieving celebrity in 12 weeks.

Though The CW picked up five new dramas for next season, Pedowitz reiterated

that he is interested in adding comedy to the network if he thinks it can find

an audience.

Thats one of the strategies in bringing back Whose Line Is It Anyway?,

he said of the show, set to debut July 16. If Whose Line works, we will

de!nitely go back to the sitcom genre.

For now, The CW is experimenting with short-form comedy series on its digital

studio, which is meant to act as an incubator for such material. At its

upfront, the network announced it is renaming the studio CW Seed and opening up

its sub-site on CWTV.com

for viewer feedback and more social engagement.

E-mail comments to amorabito@nbmedia.com and

follow her on Twitter: @andreamorabito

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