For those who don't love "walls of text" (and I understand that's almost all of you), the short answer is this: No, I don't think Ms. Ostroff's job is on the line. At least not yet. Now on to the walls of text...
In the sports world every week of the NFL season so far has some story about whether Oakland Raiders coach, Lane Kiffin is going to be fired. This is a different scenario than the CW, because by most accounts Kiffin *wants* to be fired (and I can't say I blame him). In his day, Raiders' owner Al Davis was certainly a titan of industry, but these days he is no Les Moonves. Davis wants Kiffin to resign. Kiffin wants to be paid and won't be paid if he resigns, but will get paid if they fire him.
I doubt that Dawn Ostroff wants to be fired. And right now, if I had to guess, Les Moonves has absolutely no intention of firing her. But then you see Matt Millen finally (finally, finally!) get fired as GM of the Detroit Lions after an eternity of poor performance and you start thinking anything is possible.
I know we have a lot of Veronica Mars fans on our site who'd like to see Ostroff fired just on general principles. I think she has some leash, however, and I don't know that it's a very short one at that. Basically everyone involved with the CW (which is mostly the CW and CBS, despite the Warner Bros partnership) has bought in to the strategy of targeting young women and this year is the first year that they've almost exclusively had that focus. The testing bed seems to be Mondays through Wednesdays. The CW rented out its bandwidth on Sunday nights to MRC, Thursday night is token male night, and Friday night is now token comedy night and I doubt anyone has expectations of great performance for Friday night. The CW does not program the network in primetime on Saturdays.
If I had to guess, for now the CW is actually happy about their Monday night and Wednesday night performance up against a fully competitive slate of new programming on the other broadcast nets. Tuesday night, however must be a great disappointment. Based on promotion, etc., CW seemed to be hanging a lot of hope on 90210, and it doesn't seem to be working out. This past Tuesday it dipped below three million total viewers and didn't fare all that well in any of the demographics. This spells double-trouble because without big numbers for 90210, Privileged is floundering (drawing less than two million viewers on Tuesday night).
One interesting aspect is how well the encore of 90210 performs on Wednesday nights after America's Next Top Model (which is down versus previous years). This week the Wednesday repeat had about 80% of the viewers the first airing had on Tuesday night. I put on my "wannabe programming executive" hat and wonder if it wouldn't be better to air the original 90210 after Top Model. The problem with such an approach is that you then have no lead-in for Privileged, but realistically, it's floundering anyway.
I do understand CW's goal of targeting young woman, and I somewhat understand that when you don't have much to work with, you work with what you have. CW's "anchor" shows seem to be Gossip Girl, 90210 and America's Next Top Model, with a big question mark around 90210 at this point. I don't expect things will get any better for it, and I would be considering the following moves, were it my job to consider them:
1. Flip-flop Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill on Mondays. It's obvious the CW cares more about Gossip Girl, why not give it the better slot? Sure, it then has to compete with the CBS comedies between 9p-10p, but more people are watching TV at 9pm.
2. Move the original airing of 90210 after ANTM on Wednesdays just to see how it performs. If it doesn't perform well there either, then it's a problem, especially since the CW has already ordered the back 9 episodes for the season.
3. If it performs better on Wednesdays at 9p, leave it there and consider an encore of Gossip Girl or 90210 leading into Privileged on Tuesdays, or stick Privileged on at 8pm and the encore at 9pm. Alternatively, they could try a Gossip Girl encore at 8pm on Tuesdays leading into an original 90210 at 9pm, and try Privileged after ANTM on Wednesdays.
It's always easier to be a Monday morning quarterback and a backseat driver, but CW's lineup Monday through Wednesday seemingly has opportunities for improvement, and if this past Tuesday is an indicator, the CW will need to do something differently on Tuesday nights.
I do understand that moving shows around is anathema and causes a lot of issues and also is a marketing nightmare. But if the focus for CW is Monday through Wednesday nights, right now Tuesday is a disaster. The rerun of 90210 on Wednesday outperformed the original airing of Privileged on Tuesday. The suggestions above are aimed at maximizing the performance of Gossip Girl and 90210.
Should Dawn Ostroff be Matt Millened? If CBS bought into the strategy of targeting young women (and of course they did), then Ostroff deserves a little more time. However, if next week's numbers are similar, especially on Tuesday night and they then merely stick with the status quo without making changes.. Well if that happens, either Les Moonves is not merely a patient man, but saintly in his patience or the CW is just "playing out the string", and usually you play out the string at the end of the season, not the beginning of it.
Flip-floping GG and OTH would mean less viewers for both shows
By going after 1 group of ppl like cw is going after teenage and young adult women they are alienating huge demographics that could boost their demos as well as their ratings
Bob, I disagree with you on many things, so that we disagree here is no surprise. I am obviously not convinced that you’re correct. I’m not at all convinced that Gossip Girl would do worse at 9pm, I would concede there would likely be some negative impact to OTH, but theoretically it would be more than offset by increases to GG. It’s all theory, and short of CW changing that around (and I doubt they will screw with Mondays at all, and I couldn’t fault them for that) neither of us will have an “I told you so” moment.
I am pretty sure CW will do *something* with Tuesdays though.
Sam, I agree with you. While I agree with CW that it’s currently a very lucrative sector to go after, at some point it seems hard to scale just within a target demo without having broader appeal. But this is the path CW has chosen so ultimately it will need to show growth in target demos. I suppose they figured there was less competition for the sector they are targeting, it’s a lucrative sector and targeting to broader demos wasn’t working very well for them either.
I tell you, it’s karma for canceling “Veronica Mars”!
Veronica Mars had about 2.5 million viewers, so even less than OTH, Gossip Girl and 90210.
I don’t see how axing it was such a bad decision.
Veronica Mars was a pretty smart show. There was talk after Season Three of revamping the show and sending her to work at the FBI, in fact there’s a few minutes of filmed footage of it, but sadly it never panned out at the time. Recently there’s been a few rumors of them trying again with that. If they can get Kristen Bell, that may be a show for a major network to consider.
Flip-flopping GG & OTH will be good news for Josh Schwartz fans, but a nightmare for Kristen Bell fans. I honestly think The CW should just increase their promotions for Privileged to the levels of 90210 & GG (even if that means decreasing 90210 & GG). Quality-wise it’s better than 90210 in every imaginable way possible so losing a million of 90210′s viewers doesn’t seem to make any sense. Given the style of the show, it should be getting Gilmore Girls numbers.
I doubt she will be fired anytime soon
I bet if she ignored her bosses at CBS and brought “Moonlight” over to the CW she would not be in jeopardy of loosing her job and the network it’s place on air if worse came to worse. “Moonlight” would have brought 8 million fans to the CW and that would be twice or three times as many as the best they have on the CW right now. Dawn Ostroff I will give you a piece of advice BRING MOONLIGHT BACK and you will not go wrong.
Ayla
Gah these Moonlight fans are truly rabid. I have a funny story actually – at Comiccon in San Diego the creators were on a panel and fan came up and said what they had planned (ads on buses, billboards etc) to save the show. And the creators said we really want to thank you for what you have done (and continue to do) but please don’t spend anymore money as the show cannot come back. And (I am serious here) the fan started on a tirade AT THE CREATORS OF THE SHOW – you may have given up but we haven’t etc etc. I mean it’s truly bad when the fans start attacking the creators of the show! Moonlight would not have helped CW one bit – it was too expensive, and much too older skewing for the net (it pulled somewhere in the vicinity of a 1.8 in the 18-49 demo, and I am imagine much less in the 18-34 which is what CW is all about) – simply no cross promotion possibilities to adopt such a massive loss leader (this is business her guys and while loss leaders do still exist, they are supposed to be offset by a again – and that would just not happen with Moonlight – though I believe MRC could have picked up Moonlight for a limited run and used it as a loss leader to launch Valentine or Easy Money which are likely to be relatively DOA).
Now to Rob’s suggestions. I think you are very on the ball with a lot of what you say – but here I think you are wrong on a lot of fronts. You cannot just move shows willy nilly – at first I think why are they putting GG (the young show) as the lead-in and OTH as the lead out (Wouldn’t it make sense to put them round the other way). And at first it seemed like this was a bad idea (but the numbers have clearly shown this season that this is not the case). I highly doubt there would be much of a net gain overall (if any) and while making GG slightly stronger might sound good – this would only be of benefit if CW didn’t intend to retain OTH for at least a season or two (which they would be crazy not to). I think you, yourself Rob, commented on the Fringe/House situation – FOX would rather have two very strong shows than I mega-hit and a complete flop (Standoff etc). Here CW would rather have two strong performers than a slightly stronger GG and a quite possibly much weaker OTH (which is only a little better in the ratings at this pint than 90210 and probably a bit more expensive given its age).
While I think there may be some sense in moving 90210 behind ANTM (or at least Privileged (given the weakening position of 90210) this again leaves them with the dilemna of suring up one night at the expense of another. Right now Tuesday is underperforming – say they moved Privileged to Wednesday (I guess that it would uptick – but would it do better than 90210 encores? Maybe.) The only way this whole switcher-roo would work is if Privileged gained being behind ANTM (and rated above the encores) and 90210 upticked slightly by not encoring. But what about Stylista – where will this air?? This show is coming on in a few weeks time! And this is really one of their big hopes (more so than Privileged – if this show succeeds they have a low cost reality show success!). I think ultimately they could switch Privileged for a few weeks to give it the benefit of the lead in but in the end it would move back to Tuesday and continue to seriously underperform. While I am certain CW will let it air out its 13 I think you will likely see Reaper appear in some slot (and not take over from Smallville as originally planned – I mean CW must realise that the CW repeats nearly perform at the level [in fact possibly better in total viewers and the 18-49 demo] than Privileged originals. And I think the trend for Privileged is quite clearly a downwards one (with nothing likely to change in the slot competition wise I think it is simply done and CW is doing the only thing it can – which is burn off the episodes, shrug their shoulders and hope that Styllista succeeds, Friday and Sunday’s don’t bomb horribly and Thursday holds up).
PS Rob/Bill if you read this I would dearly like to right a fortnightly/monthly column on the CW (ratings performances, highlights/lowlights, programming strategies, successes/failures etc) if you would have me. I am happy to provide credentials and perhaps some sample of what I could produce before you say yes/no.
*write a column!
Raymond — Fox is a very different network than CW. If it were just Privileged, I’d agree with you about just burning off the episodes. But surely they were hoping for bigger numbers with 90210. It is how poorly that 90210 is doing that inspired the above. There’s no way CW can be happy with last Tuesday’s performance. While I’m sure CW is disappointed with Privileged’s numbers, 90210 may be the bigger disappointment. I don’t think there’s a lot to gain (or lose) by the Monday flip-flop, but as long as I was optimizing anyway, I threw it in. They need to do something to bolster 90210 though.
As for guest posting every couple of weeks or month — thanks for offering. It’s not something Bill or I have really ever talked about it. We will discuss it, but if we decide against it, I promise it isn’t because of the write/right issue — I do that sort of thing alll the time.
Privileged is really not a bad show, sort a sad no one watches it
Maybe they should wake the heck up…if Smallville and Supernatural are your highest rated scripted shows, put more promotion into similar shows, especially Supernatural which is just coming into it’s 4th season. Give the green arrow or the revive the Aquaman project, (the pilot was just awesome BTW, the network deserves to die if they can’t pick up a great show like that and would rather go with crap shows like Privliged) Scrap the teen girl soap operas that are tanking the network, Supernatural is by far the best scripted show the network has and they should be promoting the hell out of it. Reaper is a great show, put needs a solid time slot to find a greater audience. It has already quickly be come a cult favorite and should only improve if it had a stead timeslot, not changing nights every other week. Smallville is a great show but past it’s prime, they will probably try to squeeze another year out of it, which the CW needs to stay alive, but would be bad for Smallville as it should end on a high note and with some dignity.
Basic Business101 common sense usually touts that diversification is a better and more successful strategy: make products that appeal to a wider range of people for the greatest opportunity of success. It appears Ms. Ostroff forgot to attend that particular class.
For better or (more likely) worse, she has put all her eggs into the teen-girl basket… a limited and highly fickle demo. Discarding Friday night Wrestling, which was pulling in around 4.0 (success by CW standards), simply because it was mostly men watching didn’t seem like a logical decision in my humble opinion. Friday was their “token male night”, not Thurs. Their Thursday combo of Smallville and Supernatural continues to perform well despite having the toughest night on TV and being practically ignored in promotion.
And I find it rather ironic that they are expecting the appeal of the original 90210 to contribute to drawing in a larger audience for the new version, considering that the original audience of 90210 is now mostly outside of their coveted demo.
Seriously, exactly how many cookie-cutter shows about spoiled, rich, slutty teens can one network have? In the case of CW, apparently not enough.
I must agree with Mousitsa,
Dawn was being ridiculously optimistic thinking that GG, Privileged and 90210 would be the saving grace of the CW network. It’s actually kind of funny, because they got rid of quite a few good shows when they merged. Trying to appeal to the teen girls with sex and money? Sheesh! Talk about taking the low road. Not only is she setting a bad example for women in general, but wanting young girls to strive for petty immorality. I’m disgusted. I hope the WB takes it back (if that’s even possible) Personally, I care most about Smallville. Reaper’s funny, and I don’t watch Supernatural because of my kids ~don’t want them subjected to that much screaming and gore, personally: though it is a good show. As for 90210; I had watched the original before when I was much younger, and I have absolutely NO Intention to watch this new version, whatsoever. As far as I’m concerned, When Smallville is off the air, and if they’re still appealing to the teeny-boppers… I will never have my TV tuned into the CW.
Scrios, i agree with you that Cw over promotes gg and 90210 way to much, and under promotes supernatural, reaper, and smallville, but having watched Privileged its really not what i expected, its about an aspiring writer that takes a job as a live in-tutor to teach two girls about school and life, not about skanks and money
I was quite surprised Gossip Girl didn’t get the 9pm slot when the shows were moved to Monday last Spring, not only for the increased audience but also to recieve less complaints from the viewing groups. One Tree Hill is far tamer than Gossip Girl and more suitable for the 8pm slot.
I think come January they will move 90210 if only to get it out of the way of American Idol. If they moved it to Wednesday at 9pm it would still be up against the Idol result show, so I’d imagine it moving to 9pm Tuesday and a new cheap female skewing reality taking the 8pm Tuesday slot with Privileged joining Ms. Mars in the CW graveyard.
Mandy,
I’ve never seen privileged. Just commenting on how it was being promoted, unlike other shows that have practically no promotion.
On the other hand, the sex and money comment… Directly aimed at GG and 90210. Again, I’ve seen the original 90210, so I know it’s basically going to be about sex, and GG… Sex and popularity. I just think it’s so sad that these days there’s no show of morality. No one wants to bring wholesome to the table, just raunchy. Even if it may be entertaining (I certainly don’t watch it, so I wouldn’t know) Do you think parents want their kids watching a show that tells them it’s okay to be having sex in high school? It’s just sad, in my opinion.