CW Now


CW Now is a news program/news magazine series which premiered on The CW on September 23, 2007. It was a brand extension of the syndicated Telepictures news magazine Extra, and featured anchors and correspondents from that show, including co-hosts Mario Lopez and Tanika Ray. The program was devoted to topics of interest to young adults, including entertainment news and technology topics, sometimes drawn from Extra itself, setting up the latter to inexplicably compete with the latter's own weekend edition.

Show description and advertising concept

During the upfronts, network executive Dawn Ostroff announced a then-new advertising strategy for the series, which the network called "CWickies", where an advertiser's content would be blended into the program rather than the show taking traditional commercial breaks, allowing the show to make the incorrect claim that it would be "commercial-free" in the traditional sense. Only Walmart would truly take advantage of the format with their products blended into every episode, and comedian Lewis Black mocked the concept in a "Back in Black" monologue on The Daily Shows September 26, 2007 episode. The "CWickies" concept would also be tried for the commercial breaks between Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday evenings in a more traditional ad format, where it also failed to attract interest due to the target audience of each series finding the conversations between actors in "CWickies" ads about aerie and the plot points in those two series unnatural and stilted.
The show was produced by Telepictures and Warner Horizon Television.

Reception

On the January 20, 2008 episode, CW Now received a 0.2/0 in the 18–49 demo. The zero share was a record low for the network. A repeat of Aliens in America received even lower ratings with only a 0.1/0 in the 18–49 demo. Against Super Bowl XLII on Fox on February 3, 2008, the show set the network's all-time ratings nadir, with a 0.1/0 in the 18–49 demo, a 0.3/0 in the households, and only 349,000 viewers.

Cancellation

On February 8, 2008, The CW announced that CW Now would be going on hiatus, though only five days later, it was announced that the February 24, 2008 episode would be the series finale. The show was replaced with encores of America's Next Top Model.