Inside The New CW: Network Chiefs Explain How They’re Measuring Success, Leaning Into Adult Dramas and the Path to Profitability

The CW that audiences see when they tune in this fall wont look like the CW of years past but it also wont look like the CW that new owner Nexstar actually intends to offer consumers moving forward.

In a move similar to its broadcast competition, the CW released a fall schedule meant to be practically immune to the effects of the ongoing writers strike. Its an acquisition-heavy lineup thats a mix of comedies (Canadian sitcoms including Children Ruin Everything and Run the Burbs), dramas (former AMC series 61st Street) and unscripted fare (the salvaged HBO Max hit FBoy Island). The only potential hiccup would be a strike-related production delay for All American, one of two CW shows that new network president Dennis Miller and entertainment president Brad Schwartz have decided to keep moving forward.

As much as Schwartz doesnt like the perception that there is anything wrong with an acquisition, he and Miller told Variety that isnt the center of their scheduling strategy, but rather a path they had to take this first year because of production uncertainties.

Here, Variety speaks with Schwartz and Miller about the networks plans for adult dramas, programming to Black audiences following the success of All American, going hard on unscripted with FBoy Island, and the path to making the former Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery-owned channel profitable for Nexstar.

What is the plan for marketing the new CW network ahead of the fall, especially given that this schedule wont always be your schedule, but its going to be the first taste of the new CW? And what is the overall strategy for re-educating the public about the CW vs. the individual strategies for re-education about the linear channel and the CW App?

Schwartz: Everyone talks about us needing to get away from the expensive, old CW programming. Its not even so much the expense. Its the performance and the rights. Were still going to spend a lot of money on programming. Were still going to produce over 400 hours of original programming. But it was the performance of the shows and it was the rights for the shows. In todays media environment, it almost feels like the viewers are children of divorced parents, they dont trust you completely. They want to make sure that the show is going to go on a couple of seasons before theyre going to go check it out, because theyre worried their shows going to get canceled. And in that kind of viewing environment, to not have past seasons of all your shows Imagine if Netflix didnt have seasons one and two of Outer Banks. If you went to Netflix and it was only season three? Terrible, terrible experience.

But historically, when people sold to broadcast, you had a show, it was on for the broadcast season and at the end of the broadcast season it went away. And its just not the way we can operate anymore. So its about finding great programming. Its investing, but its also about getting all the rights you need so that when we go into the third season of Sullivans Crossing, for example, and people are talking about how great it is, you can go back and watch it from the beginning. So thats where the digital and the linear play so well together. What we have to do is think about creating great content that connects with people and that, hopefully, youre going to watch that content wherever its more convenient for you. Convenience always wins. But we do know we have absolute, complete reach. So its our job just to put programming on that people are going to want to come to see and be good marketers to convince you to come check it out. But I think we have to look at our business now just holistically and to make sure that the content choices we make are available everywhere, and not the way that typical broadcast channels used to do it.

Will there be points where you are trying to hit those beats of the CWs history and connecting with that audience?

Schwartz: Were casting a new show right now that I cant talk about and the male lead there were a couple of different options and one of the male leads that we liked the most, we were like, Oh, and he was in Reign.' So we were like, Lets go with that guy!. We have to respect the CW, and everything its done. Its put some of the greatest pop culture shows of all time into into the world from Gossip Girl, Vampire Diaries, to Riverdale and The Flash. You have to always respect where you came from, and then jump off of that. The CW has always been contrarian. It has always been different. What I love about FBoy is I feel like thats a show that no other network would do. And I think the CW did shows that no other network would do. So you find all the good things that have been built. And now we jump off to try to get bigger. So lots of respect for the former CW. We just have to be bigger.

Youve said you dont plan on changing the name from the CW, but were there conversations about that? And could you revisit it if you feel like you do have a hard time reestablishing yourself or reimagining the network?

Schwartz: We can always revisit and I think we had very brief conversations, I would say, never a serious conversation. Rebrands are difficult, Ive done six of them. Rebrands are difficult because, depending on how you do it like when the Oprah Winfrey Network rebranded from Discovery Health. You literally told everybody thats on that channel, Go away, were gonna start from scratch. Its hard. It took them years, and they lost hundreds of millions of dollars on their way to profitability. Or when Style rebranded to Esquire. They literally said bye to everybody that was on that network, tried to get a new one, and that failed miserably.

We have a brand that, for better or worse, has been around for almost 20 years that people know. And I believe that that brand has enough equity in it that we can make it more elastic. And that we can do shows like Sullivans Crossing, and FBoy Island, and do comedies. Dennis and my job is to figure out, what is the CW way of doing comedy? What is the CW way of doing adult drama? Well be doing a lot of brand work over the next year to really flesh out that story. But I dont think wed change the name. You can always revisit it but there are no plans on any piece of paper or any deck or roadmap that has us changing the name. Thats on the record.

Brad, youve talked about the need to attract new viewers and to keep them coming back to The CW. But when youre programming shows like Everyone Else Burns that is only six episodes, how does that factor into the plan? Or if a show like 61st Street which youve acquired two seasons of really over-performs, is there a world where you order a third completely original season?

Schwartz: We knew when we attacked this project that we wanted to bring new people to the CW. We knew we had to. So we were like, what does adult drama look like? What do original films look like? What does unscripted look like? And thats why some of the first choices that we have are some acquisitions or co-productions. We have about four or five comedies in development or in upcoming production to come behind all those shows. We have that show, and another one, and another one thats going to keep that female-fronted drama night going. The I Am series of films is the start of a potential movie strategy. FBoy Island leads into FGirl, and then behind that, Heather is developing a ton of big, loud unscripted stuff.

I think this is Phase 1 but the idea of trying to get more comedies, and hopefully those comedies work and then we build off comedy, and the dramas work, we build off drama. With 61st Street, specifically that show, Season 2, no spoilers, has a really solid ending. Theres no cliffhanger of any kind. It ties up the story and ends really nicely. So that really could be it. If it over-performs, if it does really well, we can always have a conversation. Courtney B. Vance has been texting me every day about how excited he is that the show is going to get a bigger audience and get a bigger platform. I wouldnt say were buddies yet, its just been over text. So never say never. But thats an expensive show. That was a really opportunistic opportunity for us to have Emmy winners and Michael B. Jordan, amazing producers, and find something that we think matches well with the highest concentration of African American audiences on television, which is All American. I would love to have to have that do so well that Dennis and I have to have a talk.

And looking at your fall schedule, you are very well insulated against the effects of the writer strike for now. But youve also said youre developing new shows and you have new shows in production. So how long do you think it will be before the CW starts to feel the effects of the strike?

Schwartz: The only show on that schedule that is strike impacted is All American. So that schedule is pretty solid. And if the strike ends in the next four to six weeks, I think All American would be fine because they did a lot of work breaking stories and stuff before the strike and now we just get the writers room going. If that gets pushed because the writer strike goes a little longer, and I think it probably might, that goes into Q1 and you replace it with something like The Swarm, and we have some other things. As long as the writers strike is three months or four months, or less, I think were going to be fine. And a lot of our original productions that are coming next, even in scripted, some of them are co-productions. Joan is a great example.

Joan is a co-production built from scratch with the CW. And that show is being shot in the UK and just started production this week. And so thats not strike impacted. Thats a show that our entire team is dealing with on a daily basis. We just saw first shots from the set. And the two that I was talking about that are coming behind Sullivans Crossing, that female-fronted drama world, those are both co-productions being built from scratch, homegrown shows that are being done in Canada. Those are also not affected. And then Heather has a ton of great unscripted and thats obviously not impacted. I think were in good shape. Walker, well have to wait.

How you are positioning the CW in the market where there is a continued perception that broadcast is dying, while at the same time streaming is clearly struggling in terms of rebranding. Not the aspects for the consumer, but rebranding in the minds of buyers and the industry?

Miller: Lo and behold, of the 30 stocks in the media space, [Nexstar was] the second-best performer over the last 10 years. Just in the last two board meetings, we were talking about that: Doing 34-35% margins in a business where we dont even know if theres positive margins in streaming yet, thats to be determined here. Slow and steady growth, sticking to your knitting, staying out of areas when you dont know what the business model is going to look like. Perry and his team, Andy Alford, that group here, have just done a remarkable job. And I think for both Brad and I, when we were looking at this, because it was kind of unusual jump [for me] from the board into an operating role, and Brad and I worked together previously at TV Guide/Pop, and one of the big, compelling things and getting the kind of talent that weve been able to bring over on the executive side was, Take a look at this balance sheet. They did $1.6 billion of cash flow last year. They are leveraged almost below three times now. Compare that to where Warner sits and Paramount sits and the other folks here, were in a really good place to acquire the things we need to acquire to take the long view. We want to invest in content, as were doing now. We could do that on a larger scale if we found the right asset.

So that was a hugely important part for me to say, hey, we got the right mothership who is sitting there in a very financially viable place and not biding its time always looking for opportunities. Theyve told Brad and I, you present something, go right to the top, theres no bureaucracy here. Youre gonna hear from the guy who started this quickly. If you want to get sports rights, if you want to buy a production company, if you want to license content at a high level, go right to the person, get that answer and move forward which doesnt happen at the other places. This was the reason for both Brad and I to go, this is the right company to have behind you in going after what is a challenging turnaround, in terms of the world that we live in today here. With the reset going on, that you guys are covering every day, I dont think Ive ever seen in my lifetime it resetting this rapidly and without a lot of answers as to what the final playbook is going to look like here, I just think were in a really cool position here.

What would be your measure of success at the end of the season? What would you want to see by the end of the season to think, we did a first successful season of our CW?

Miller: That we have brought new viewers to the CW. That we have a couple of shows that have popped. We all know when youve got a whole new schedule on, youll be surprised that some of the stuff you thought was going to be big isnt, some of the stuff youve thought its okay, becomes a huge hit Ive seen that so many times in my career and in my life. At the end, if we have a couple of shows that are really developing fans, if we have brought a whole set of unique viewers into the CW, if the word on the street and in the creative community is that this is a place doing quality work, thats innovative, theyre taking chances, they respond quickly, they treat you fairly, thatd be a really good year for us.

Schwartz: Ditto. I would be doing that thing where I repeat everything he said, but its unnecessary.