The CW

The CW Television Network (commonly referred to as just The CW) is an American English-language free-to-air television network that is operated by The CW Network, LLC, a limited liability joint venture between ViacomCBS, the successor company of CBS Corporation, the former owner of United Paramount Network (UPN); and AT&T, whose WarnerMedia subsidiary is the parent company of Warner Bros., former majority owner of The WB. The network's name is an abbreviation derived from the first letters of the names of its two parent corporations (CBS and Warner Bros.).

The CW Television Network made its debut on September 18, 2006, after its two predecessors, UPN and The WB, respectively ceased independent operations on September 15 and 17 of that year. The CW's first two nights of programming – on September 18 and 19, 2006 – consisted of reruns and launch-related specials. 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. Originally, the network's programming lineup was intended to appeal mainly to women between the ages of 18 and 34,although starting in 2011 the network increased in programming that appeals to men. As of August 2017, the CW's audience is 50% male and 50% female. The network currently runs programming seven days a week: airing Mondays through Fridays in the afternoon (The CW Daytime) and Sundays through Fridays in prime time, along with a Saturday morning live-action educational programming block produced by Litton Entertainment called One Magnificent Morning, which is the successor to the animation block Vortexx.

It is also available in Canada on pay television providers through stations owned-and-operated by CBS Corporation and affiliates that are located within proximity to the Canada–United States border (whose broadcasts of CW shows are subject to simultaneous substitution laws imposed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, if a Canadian network holds the broadcast rights); it is also available through two affiliates that are classified in the United States as superstations – New York City affiliate WPIX and Los Angeles affiliate KTLA.

Additionally, The CW is available in Mexico through affiliates located near the Mexico–U.S. border (such as KFMB-DT2/San Diego-Tijuana, KECY-DT3 in El Centro, California, KVIA-DT2 in El Paso, and KCWT-CD with simulcasters KFXV-LD2 and KNVO-DT4 in McAllen–Brownsville, Texas) on pay television providers. In both Canada and Mexico, some CW affiliate signals originating from the U.S. are receivable over-the-air in border areas depending on the station's signal coverage.

1993–2006: Predecessors and formation
The CW Television Network is a successor to The WB and UPN, both of which launched within one week of each other in 1995.

UPN and The WB both began just as the Fox network had started to secure a foothold with American television audiences. The two networks launched to limited fanfare and generally mediocre to poor results. However, over the subsequent $11 1/2$ seasons, both were able to air several series that became quite popular (such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Trek: Voyager, 7th Heaven, Dawson's Creek, Charmed, Smallville and America’s Next Top Model). Towards the end of their first decade on the air, The WB and UPN were in decline, unable to reach the audience share or have the effect that Fox had gained within its first decade, much less that of the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS and NBC). In the eleven years that UPN and The WB were in operation, the two networks lost a combined $2 billion. Chris-Craft Industries, Viacom and Time Warner officials had discussed a possible merger of UPN and The WB as early as September 1995, only eight months after their respective launches; however, discussions ultimately broke down over issues on how to combine Chris-Craft and Tribune Broadcasting's station interests in the proposal to merge the networks, since the two companies' station portfolios overlapped with one another in several major markets.

Executives from CBS and Time Warner announced on January 24, 2006, that they would respectively shut down UPN and The WB, and combine resources to form a new broadcast network, to be known as The CW Television Network, that would – at the outset – feature programming from both of its predecessors-to-be as well as new content developed specifically for the new network. CBS chairman Leslie Moonves explained that the name of the new network was formed from the first letters of CBS and Warner Bros, joking, "We couldn't call it the WC for obvious reasons." Although some executives reportedly disliked the new name, Moonves stated in March 2006 that there was "zero chance" the name would change, citing research claiming 48% of the target demographic were already aware of the CW name.

In May 2006, The CW announced that it would pick up a combined thirteen programs from its two predecessors to air as part of the network's inaugural fall schedule: seven series held over from The WB (7th Heaven, Beauty and the Geek, Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, Reba, Smallville and Supernatural) and six held over from UPN (America's Next Top Model, Veronica Mars, Everybody Hates Chris, Girlfriends, All of Us and WWE SmackDown). Upon the network's launch, The CW chose to use the scheduling model utilized by The WB due in part to the fact that it had a more extensive base programming schedule than UPN, allowing for a larger total of weekly programming hours for the new network to fill. (The WB carried 30 hours of programming each week because it had a children's program block and a daytime lineup that UPN did not offer; UPN was primarily a prime time-only network with 12 weekly hours of network programming at the time of the network's shutdown.)

Network programming and scheduling
The CW airs its prime time programming for only two hours on Sunday through Friday evenings, compared to the three hours on Monday through Saturdays and four hours on Sunday nights programmed by the three longest-established networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. This "common prime" scheduling (which was originated by Fox when it launched its prime time schedule in April 1987, and later adopted by CW predecessors The WB and UPN when they launched in January 1995) allows the option for affiliates to air either a local newscast, syndicated programming or both during the 10:00–11:00 p.m. (Eastern and Pacific Time) time period. As with The WB and UPN, The CW does not run network programming on Saturday nights – even though it maintains a syndicated children's program block on Saturday mornings – allowing affiliates to run syndicated programs, sports, movies or network programs that were preempted from earlier in the week because of special programming carried by the station, in the 8:00–10:00 p.m. (Eastern and Pacific) time period (MyNetworkTV also does not carry any weekend prime time programming, having turned network time on Saturday evenings over to its affiliates in March 2007).

The CW is also tied with NBC (if its morning news program Today is not counted) for the fewest daytime hours programmed by any of the major broadcast networks, running only one hour of programming each weekday afternoon (compared to 4$1/2$ daytime hours on CBS and three hours on ABC). The CW, unlike the "Big Four" broadcast networks, also does not air any national newscasts, network-supplied sports, or late-night programming.

Because of these factors, The CW's affiliates handle the responsibility of programming non-network time periods, with the majority of its stations filling those slots mainly with syndicated programming. However, some of the network's affiliates broadcast their own local news and/or sports programs (either produced by the station itself or through outsourcing agreements with an affiliate of another network). Many affiliates also carry telecasts of basketball, football and in some cases, other collegiate sporting events (such as baseball or hockey) that are produced by syndicators such as American Sports Network and Raycom Sports, while a few (mainly those owned by Tribune Broadcasting, such as former Chicago affiliate WGN-TV) carry games from local teams of major professional sports leagues such as Major League Baseball and the NBA.

, The CW currently provides 20 hours of regularly scheduled network programming each week, over the course of seven days. The network provides twelve hours of prime time programming to its owned-and-operated and affiliated stations on Sunday through Fridays from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time. Outside of prime time, an hour of daytime programming is also offered Monday through Fridays from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. in all time zones, in the form of tabloid talk show The Jerry Springer Show (though a few affiliates – such as WPIX in New York City, KDAF in Dallas-Fort Worth, KPXJ in Shreveport and WCCB in Charlotte – carry the show earlier in the afternoon); also, a three-hour educational programming block called "One Magnificent Morning" (which airs as part of the CW schedule through a time-lease agreement with Litton Entertainment) airs on Saturday mornings from 8:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. in all time zones.

The weekday daytime hour provided by the network and the Litton-produced Saturday morning block (the latter of which is subject to scheduling variances similar to the weekday hour in some markets, such as in Atlanta and San Diego) are designed to be tape delayed and are therefore recommended to air in the same time slot in all time zones, though both are broadcast one hour earlier on affiliates of The CW Plus in the Central, Mountain and Alaska Time Zones. In Guam, CW Plus affiliate KTKB-LD in Hagåtña airs the CW schedule day and date on a one-day tape delay from its initial broadcast because of the time difference between Guam and the continental United States as the island is on the west side of the International Date Line. As of 2018, Supernatural (which originally aired on The WB) is the only CW series carried over from either of the network's respective predecessors that continues to be broadcast on the network.

The CW formerly aired short segments during commercial breaks within certain episodes of its programs known as "Content Wraps" – a play on the network's name – in order to advertise one company's product during part or the entirety of a commercial break. The entertainment magazine series CW Now was inspired in part by the success of the Content Wraps as it was intended to be a series with product placement; the program was cancelled in 2008, after a single 23-episode season. For the 2006–07 season, The CW reached an agreement with American Eagle Outfitters to incorporate tie-ins with the company's aerie clothing line as part of the Content Wrap concept within the network's Tuesday night schedule, which included subjects in the commercials commenting on plot points in each of the shows. The agreement was cut down to regular advertising in February 2007, after a fan backlash by viewers of both shows and general criticism of the campaign.

News programming
The CW does not produce any national news content, and the majority of its affiliates do not have their own autonomous news operations. , the network currently has only four affiliates that produce their own local news programming, all of which were carry-overs from previous affiliations: WPIX in New York City and KTLA in Los Angeles started their news departments as independent stations and/or during early affiliations with other networks including DuMont; WCCB in Charlotte, North Carolina started its news operation as a Fox affiliate; and WISH-TV in Indianapolis (which became a CW affiliate on January 1, 2015) started its news operation as an ABC affiliate before affiliating with CBS in 1956. KTLA has the largest number of weekly hours devoted to local news programming of any CW affiliate with 78¾ hours of scheduled news each week.

Eight other CW-affiliated stations maintained in-house news operations, but have since disaffiliated from the network or discontinued in-house production:


 * WGN-TV in Chicago has maintained a news department since it launched as a CBS affiliate in 1948; the station – which, along with sister stations KTLA and WPIX, transitioned into a news-intensive outlet during its tenures with The WB and The CW – retains a news-heavy format after disaffiliating from the network in September 2016;
 * Under Tribune Broadcasting ownership, WLVI in Boston produced an in-house 10:00 p.m. newscast, which was replaced in December 2006 with one produced by then-NBC affiliate (now independent) WHDH, after Tribune sold WLVI to that station's longtime owner Sunbeam Television;
 * XETV-TDT in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico (serving the San Diego market) retained the news department it launched in 1999 as a Fox affiliate when it joined The CW in August 2008; XETV's news department shut down on March 31, 2017, following the earlier announcement that the CW affiliation in San Diego would move to a subchannel of CBS affiliate KFMB-TV.
 * In April 2012, KCWI-TV in Des Moines, Iowa broadcast a morning news and talk program, which transitioned from an in-house production to a brand extension during Good Morning America of ABC affiliate WOI-DT's morning newscast on April 11, 2016, as a result of Nexstar Broadcasting's acquisition of KCWI.
 * For several years, WDCW in Washington, D.C. used reporters from Tribune's local bureau and anchors based from the studios of sister CBS station WTVR in Richmond, Virginia, and KDAF in Dallas, KIAH in Houston and WSFL-TV in Miami used non-traditional formats (in the form of a newsreel-style program known as NewsFix, along with the morning show Morning Dose; both KDAF and KIAH had previously produced more traditional newscasts, launched during their WB affiliations, earlier in their tenures with The CW). These programs were all canceled in September 2018, a result of budget cuts within Tribune, along with the termination of Tribune's attempted merger with Sinclair Broadcast Group. As of 2019, KIAH and KDAF have seen started producing their own morning newscast KIAH used the name moring dose their title and KDAF began a partnership with Urban One to produce and simulcast the morning show from radio station KBFB (97.9 FM) titled as The Beat on 33.

News programming on CW affiliates – if the station carries any – is often outsourced to another major network affiliate in the market, especially if they are operated as part of a duopoly or management agreement, such as Tribune's respective CW-Fox duopolies of KWGN-TV/KDVR in Denver and KPLR-TV/KTVI in St. Louis (the Fox stations in both duopolies – KDVR and KTVI – were formerly owned by Local TV, with Tribune-owned KWGN and KPLR respectively consolidating with those stations through local marketing agreements formed as part of a wider partnership involving Local TV, which Tribune bought outright in 2013); Evansville, Indiana affiliate WTVW (which joined The CW in January 2013) and ABC affiliate WEHT (a virtual duopoly formed through Nexstar Broadcasting Group's 2011 purchase of WEHT and trade of WTVW to partner group Mission Broadcasting); and the CW-CBS O&O duopoly of KMAX-TV/KOVR in Sacramento (the former of which has produced a morning newscast, Good Day Sacramento, since it was a UPN owned-and-operated station, and – despite the two becoming a duopoly in 2005 – has remained separate from a more traditional morning show on KOVR pre-CBS This Morning, which produces KMAX's evening newscast).

The scheduling of news programming on The CW's affiliates often mirrors that of Fox stations, with morning newscasts (designed to compete with the national morning shows on ABC, CBS and NBC within the 7:00–9:00 a.m. timeslot; in duopolies, these are typically an extension of a sister station's morning newscast) and a prime time newscast within the 10:00–11:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific (9:00–10:00 p.m. Central/Mountain) time slot. Rarely (but more common on the few major-market CW affiliates with in-house news departments), they may also include midday and/or early evening newscasts, including the network newscast slot of 6:30 p.m. ET/5:30 p.m. CT.

Children's programming
On September 23, 2006, the Kids' WB children's programming block – which originated on The WB in September 1995 and continued to be produced by Warner Bros. Television – was carried over to The CW as part of its inaugural programming lineup; although the network on which it originated ceased operations the week before, the "Kids' WB" branding was retained for the block. On October 2, 2007, through a joint decision between corporate parents Warner Bros. 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, which carried many series shared with the block and vice versa, Nickelodeon and Disney Channel), as well as the effects of children's advertising limits, 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). Kids' WB ended its run on May 17, 2008 (though some CW affiliates that delayed the block to Sundays, such as Atlanta O&O WUPA, aired the block for the last time on May 18).

The following week on May 24, 4Kids took over responsibility for The CW's Saturday morning children's lineup, with the debut of a new block called The CW4Kids. The block's lineup initially consisted mostly of programs carried over from Kids' WB, before eventually adding 4Kids-produced shows such as Chaotic as well as new seasons of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The block was rebranded into Toonzai on August 14, 2010 (though The CW4Kids name was retained as a sub-brand to fulfill branding obligations that the network had to comply with per 4Kids Entertainment's contract to lease The CW's Saturday morning timeslots); Toonzai ended its run on August 18, 2012.

On July 3, 2012, Saban Brands and Kidsco Media Ventures, affiliates of Saban Capital Group, entered into an agreement to program the five-hour Saturday morning time slot with a new action-adventure and comedy programming block for The CW. TheCW4Kids/Toonzai was replaced by Vortexx on August 25, 2012, featuring programs such as Power Rangers Lost Galaxy and WWE Saturday Morning Slam, the latter of which marked the return of WWE programming to the network since WWE Smackdown moved to MyNetworkTV in 2008.

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. Vortexx (which was the last remaining non-educational children's block on the major U.S. broadcast networks) was replaced by One Magnificent Morning on October 4, 2014. The block features a mix of wildlife and lifestyle-themed programs, similar in vein to those featured on the Litton-produced blocks aired by ABC and CW sister network CBS (one of its initial programs, Expedition Wild, was moved over to "One Magnificent Morning" from the ABC block; while one of the CW block's early entries, Rock the Park, moved to "Litton's Weekend Adventure" after one season). On January 7, 2016, The CW and Litton announced a five-year renewal for the block, extending it through the 2020–21 broadcast season. Starting with the 2017–18 broadcast season, the block's running time was reduced to three hours and began airing from 8:00am to 11:00am. The CW returned the two hours of reclaimed time to the affiliates.

CW Seed
CW Seed (originally called CWD or the CW Digital Studio) is a production arm that provides original content created exclusively for digital platforms focused in the areas of animation, game shows, comedy and digital personalities. Previously existing as a section on The CW's main website, CW Seed was spun-off to a separate domain in 2014. Original web series produced by CW Seed includes Stupid Hype, I Ship It, How to Be a Vampire, JoJoHead, Prom Queen, Husbands, the Arrowverse series Vixen and Freedom Fighters: The Ray, and Constantine: City of Demons. In addition, CW Seed hosts various library programming from co-owners CBS and Warner Bros.