Interesting USA Today article on The CW. They're giving their Up Front announcement today.
Apparently, many affiliates across the country have already started preempting WB and UPN programming. Though, I think a lot of that had to do with local Championship College Basketball games. The "ratings are down" line also forgets to qualify that statement with the fact that SV has been in reruns for the last few weeks.
Here's the paper's take:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2006-03-14-cw_x.htm
New CW network seeks its own identity
By Gary Levin, USA TODAY
Will CW equal UPN plus WB, or something more?
That's the equation viewers of both lame-duck networks are mulling as plans are made for the CW to sprout in September, targeting the same 18-to-34 crowd its predecessors did.
Network executives will unveil development plans to advertisers at a meeting in L.A. today. But don't look for many new shows from the network, which was announced in January as a replacement for UPN and WB. The CW is already well stocked with best-of-both returning series.
CW entertainment president Dawn Ostroff says five series — WB's Gilmore Girls, Smallville and Beauty and the Geek, and UPN's America's Next Top Model and Everybody Hates Chris — are a virtual lock for the CW lineup this fall, along with WWE Smackdown, expected to keep its Friday berth.
Upcoming WB series Pepper Dennis, starring Rebecca Romijn as a TV reporter, also is a contender for CW, and others, such as Girlfriends, Supernatural and Veronica Mars, are on the fence, though odds favor their return. But a rumored revival of 7th Heaven, canceled by WB for financial reasons, is a long shot.
"We already have established franchises from both networks, and shows that speak specifically to the 18-to-34 demographic," says Ostroff, who also runs UPN. "We're hoping one plus one will equal three."
Confirming a cost-saving rationale for combining the two money-losing networks, CW has ordered just six pilots, down from the 15 or so each commissioned last spring. "Obviously we'd like to see one thing new on the schedule, and there could be two," Ostroff says, plus others as midseason replacements. Candidates include:
•Aquaman, another superhero franchise from the Smallville team.
•Palm Springs, a mystery soap from Kevin Williamson (Dawson's Creek).
•Runaway, about a man falsely accused of murder who moves his family to a small town under assumed names while proving his innocence.
•Split Decision, a drama about a teenage girl who vacillates between the cheerleader and rebel crowds and is seen as two separate characters inhabiting both worlds.
•She Said, He Said, an ensemble romantic comedy in the Men Are from Mars mode: a guy, a girl and their different worldviews. Nick Lachey is in talks for the male lead.
•The Game, a Girlfriends spinoff about football players' girlfriends.
Analyst Steve Sternberg of the Magna Global USA ad firm says it's a "mistake to start out with too much new product," and says "neither WB nor UPN has been particularly successful over the past few seasons in developing new scripted series. It's much better to just take one or two new shows to start, and then focus on developing potential replacements."
Starcom's Laura Caraccioli-Davis is unenthused: "They're creating something so similar to what they had, there's no sense of excitement in the ad community," she says. And with a "tech-savvy" target audience, the CW's traditional network blueprint "seems very old-school to me."
CW so far has agreements with 49 stations, covering 60% of the USA's TV homes, to carry the network.
Meantime, WB and UPN are hanging in even as some current affiliates have begun pre-empting their lineups. Ratings for Chris and Smallville are down, though Top Model returned last week with a record-high season opener.
"We obviously know it's going to be challenging for the rest of the season," Ostroff says. "But shows that are good franchises and are known will have an easier time relaunching." 
But yeah, DTS has a bug up its behind about posting back to back - like I just did here. I don't know what the big freakin' deal is. You'd think if they were trying to save server space on their end, they'd disable image links in the footers or something more logical like that, but whatever. I don't post there that much, so it doesn't bother me.
