The Beautiful Life: TBL is canceled, replaced by Melrose Place repeats.
Via CW press release (bad news loves a late Friday afternoon…):
A “MELROSE PLACE” TIMESHARE:
ENCORE EPISODES WILL AIR WEDNESDAY NIGHTS
ON THE CW
September 25, 2009 (Burbank, CA) ? The CW Network will begin airing encore episodes of the new drama MELROSE PLACE in the 9:00-10:00 p.m. ET timeslot on Wednesday nights, beginning September 30.
Following is The CW’s revised schedule:
Monday
8:00-9:00 p.m. “ONE TREE HILL”
9:00-10:00 p.m. “GOSSIP GIRL”
Tuesday
8:00-9:00 p.m. “90210”
9:00-10:00 p.m. “MELROSE PLACE”
Wednesday
8:00-9:00 p.m. “AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL”
9:00-10:00 p.m. “MELROSE PLACE” (Encore Episodes)
Thursday
8:00-9:00 p.m. “THE VAMPIRE DIARIES”
9:00-10:00 p.m. “SUPERNATURAL”
Friday
8:00-9:00 p.m. “SMALLVILLE”
9:00-10:00 p.m. “AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL” (Encore Episodes)
All Times ET
WTF? Why not an encore of Vampire Diaries?
Wow, they program 10 hours of shows a week and only fill 8 hours of them. I miss the good old days of the WB still.
clearly they arent ready to admit defeat on Melrose Place i think they should repeat Vampire Diaries on wednesday put Life Unexpected on tuesday instead of melros
I second the call for Vampire Diaries. I’m reading this as the CW trying to promote Melrose Place as much as they can (favoritism from high up?) but ratings wise Melrose Place won’t draw many viewers in a repeat while if TB’s replays are to be any value, CW has a card up their sleeve in VD repeats that isn’t being played anytime soon. This seems like bad business to me.
So now we get to see Melrose place die twice a week.
I’m shocked the PR didn’t say “new hit drama,” but what a joke.
Vampire Diaries repeats would have been a safer bet as the show is doing well and I imagine it would pull in a better audience. I imagine Life UneXpected would have replaced it anyway.
I don’t get why the CW didn’t just try out TBL on Friday’s at 9. Sure it’s a death slot, but I think doing replay’s of a reality show is just plain stupid
I hope they promote Life UneXpected well. The critics love that show, and its rare that CW would receive such critical love for a new show, so they should not waste the opportunity.
One should always take a moment to appreciate the humor in life.
Life UneXpected is more akin to Gilmore Girls or Everwood which may work in its favour, it’s nice to see a show that focuses on adults than brats and it’s feels more grounded. With enough promotion, it could their next hit after Vampire Diaries.
Competition is far stronger Tuesday night at 9 than Wednesday. They might get decent sampling. Because VD held last night they probably don’t want to water down (i.e., give people a “second chance” and skip the Thursday). With MP trying to keep alive until HL arrives. It’s still sad to see them only program 8 hours. Really?
I enjoy (tolerate) Melrose Place much more than Vampire Diaries, but this just seems like a bad move.
I think repeating MP is the better move. MP needs the support move then VD does. I still don’t think MP will ever be a hit but I can see why they would re-air the MP episode the night after rather then repeat a VD episode a full week later.
I called this from when they cancelled TBL. The CW never cancels shows like this. And they probably wanted Melrose Place to grow which the only reason for the early axe of TBL. Melrose Place repeats are gonna do terrible.
I won’t mind if the reruns manage to do even worse than The Beautiful Life. Just as long as I see some sub-1 million ratings in that time slot, I’ll still get a good laugh.
I think it is a good idea to focus on Pushing “Melrose” cause it needs help. “The Vampire Diaries” doesn’t cause the network is happy with its progress.
I think they should air repeats of Vampire Diaries after Smallville on Friday Nights I mean more Smallville viewers would rather watch VD than Top Model.
The CW should start airing sports.
CW is doing it all over again… airing repeats of a failing show even if they know (Well I guess they know…) It’s not gonna give better ratings to the show. Should have tried to boost VD ratings, and maybe suck some more money from one of there 3 successful show
“I think repeating MP is the better move. MP needs the support move then VD does.” I agree. MP is a solid show, and I think CW feels if people sample it, they might come back for more. Perhaps the TOP MODEL crowd is older than the 90210 viewership?
Samuel – The CW again repeats itself from last season.
I basically guessed that Melrose repeats would air at 9.
Melrose can have the worst ratings yet it will still get a full season renewal soon.
Its an extremely questionable move. Now of course they are limited because they have no replacement programming available. And they had to get rid of TBL, as it was bombing in a staggering way. But that 9pm hour is getting owned by FOx’s Glee in the CW 18-34.
ANd its doing it primarily in the female 18-34. MP is going to get slaughtered worse then it is on Tuesday, most likely.
I honestly would have pulled Smallville from its meaningless Friday slot. While Top Model and Smallville aren’t good matches, its one program on the CW that doesn’t have a primary female audience (thanks toVD Supernatural is now leaning female).
I would assume that viewer per viewer Wednesday (or Tuesday) is more valuable then Friday.
This will be Melrose Place
This will be a repeat
This will be competing with Glee for primarily the same audience
In all honesty, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Wednesday airing get a .3 share with less than 500,000 viewers.
I assume this is an attempt to try and stop Melrose from bleeding viewers and when looked at like that it makes some degree of sense. However when you consider that they’ve got Vampie Diaries doing well and Smallville still stuck on Friday’s moving repeats of Melrose Place after Top Model is just stupid.
I agree VD should be in that spot. It would probably pull in at least 2 million viewers.
As the CW is a partnership between WB and CBS it probably breaks down to trying to split air time 50 50. A quick Wikipedia search will show that Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, Smallville, and supernatural are all WB. 90210, ANTM and Melrose Place however are CBS. The Beautiful Life was a Co-production between the two. So with that’s Cancellation if the if Vampire Diaries were two repeat it would mean 6 hours of WB a week and 4 hours CBS. Also with how much international airing are paying for 90210 CBS probably has too much riding on melrose place’s success.
i will be happy the day they cancel melrose.. that show sucks.. im really enough of the CW and its ‘HIT shows’. i just want to see how supernatural ands this year.
Melrose will tank by the end of Fall,thats my prediction.They will have to air Life UneXpected and The Body Politic as replacements.Boy The CW is like A Black Hole In Broadcast Television.I hope they are demoted to Cable as punishment.MyNetworkTV airs better programming than they do.
Melrose will be next
Stuart, “As the CW is a partnership between WB and CBS it probably breaks down to trying to split air time 50 50. A quick Wikipedia search will show that Vampire Diaries, Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, Smallville, and supernatural are all WB. 90210, ANTM and Melrose Place however are CBS. The Beautiful Life was a Co-production between the two. So with that’s Cancellation if the if Vampire Diaries were two repeat it would mean 6 hours of WB a week and 4 hours CBS.”
That’s a very interesting observation. I’m not sure how much “split the time” effects CW decisions, but I bet it’s a least a little, and maybe more, since the conventional wisdom is that CBS and Warner Bros are making all their money on show production / licensing / etc. and losing money on the CW itself.
I’m torn on this decision, on the 1 hand MP needs all the help it can get. But on the other hand a repeat of the prior weeks VD the night before a fresh episode could really do well in with ratings. So it comes down to whether or not to help a poor performer, or go with something that has higher potential at getting people to watch it. On the business end of things I’d say go with VD on Wednesdays, and replace ANTM repeats with MP repeats on Fridays.
I did also read that 90210 is completely paid for by foreign licensing, running about 2 million dollars an episode. So logic assumes especially for a Heather Locklear appearance your looking at foreign networks clammoring to buy the show. Even if the ratings don’t improve if the cost is covered by that and product placement you’re looking at a good way for the CW the make actual money.,
Why is the CW so dedicated to these trashy remakes? Last season, Privileged pulled in better numbers than Melrose and it did not get any promotion or encores. It’s season was cut short and it was canceled. I’d wager good money Melrose will get renewed even with a lower average and the CW will give some spiel about “letting it grow into a hit.” I just don’t understand. It’s a failure. Call it a day. If Reaper had those ratings, it would have just gotten yanked off the schedule. Does Dawn have some weird Aaron Spelling fetish or something?
Privileged did encore 9 different times throughout the CW 08-09 season. Both Top Model Encores and 90210 encores did better in viewers and Demo’s. It did encore better then One Tree Hill which only was used as an encore 5 times.
And people understand that networks can not survive by keeping alive year after year shows that perform poorly. And Privileged was the lowest performing show in viewers and demos out of any scripted show that started in the Fall.
Just as every other CW show is down this year, Privileged would almost certainly have fallen significantly if they picked it up.
Monday
8:00-9:00 p.m. “ONE TREE HILL”
9:00-10:00 p.m. “GOSSIP GIRL”
Tuesday
8:00-9:00 p.m. “90210”
9:00-10:00 p.m. “MELROSE PLACE”
Wednesday
8:00-9:00 p.m. “SMALLVILLE”
9:00-10:00 p.m. “AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL”
Thursday
8:00-9:00 p.m. “THE VAMPIRE DIARIES”
9:00-10:00 p.m. “SUPERNATURAL”
Friday
8:00-9:00 p.m. “AMERICA’S NEXT TOP MODEL”
9:00-10:00 p.m. “MELROSE PLACE” (Encore Episodes)
even though the vampire diaries is doing well for the cw they dont seem to really care for shows on thursdays and fridays as much as they do on mon-wed.
Ryan, that’s not really true. That advertisers POUR MONEY into Thursdays more than any other night means CW cares about Thursdays quite a bit. If anything they’d like it to do very well and “subsidize” some of the Mon-Wed shows while they get traction w/women 18-34 on those nights. The bonus of Vampire Diaries is that it’s not only doing relatively well (by CW standards) in adults 18-49, it’s also doing well with women 18-34. My guess is CW cares. A lot.
Well now the CW can add up the ratings for MP on both Tuesday and the Wednesday encore to try to make the show look slightly better
This isn’t surprising but this strategy didn’t seem to stop 90210’s slide last season, so not expecting much success with MP either.
For those calling for MP’s cancellation – not gonna happen with Heather Locklear’s epsicdes coming up – it would have to drop to MRC Sunday ratings levels b4 they canned it prior to her episodes airing. So I’d expect a bunch more promotion as they try to save the show. And if Locklear’s eps even see the demos go up by a tenth of a point, that will probably be enough to claim success and at least get the show a full season. Beyond that, I don’t know, but this definitely is the CW’s baby this year and they won’t admit defeat that easily. Will TBL’s ratings be a part of the CW avg for the index next week or will they be factored out since show gone already?
mark wood – Privileged would have most likely been axed in the fall, had The CW not completely gotten rid of their sunday shows. This season, The CW’s only underdog series is TBL, which they felt they needed to axe. Despte 3 new reality shows airing midseason as well as a new drama, I still think the only dramas to return in 2010-2011 for The CW are
America’s Next Top Model
One Tree Hill
Supernatural
Gossip Girl
90210
Melrose Place
The Vampire Diaries
Why don´t you put:THE BODY POLITIC instead.
I agree, they should try out one of their other pilots..the only other one. but its a good idea for melrose place, save the shows you still have cw!!
Will these encores really last through November. CW should just burn off Blonde Charity Mafia in the slot (atleast its something new).
Has anybody else wondered if this will basically cut their Tuesday night viewers in half? Instead of getting more exposure, does anybody else think the same audience will watch either night since they have an option to watch the same ep Tuesday OR Wednesday?
WHat they should do is uncancel TBL its not like CW gets that much viewers if 2 mil for smallville is a lot…1 mil for TBl is great lol…if they wont then they should move smallville to wednesdays after ANTM or repeat vampire diaries lol
It’s a lot for their Fridays, not for Smallville. Last season, it was between 3-4 million on Thursdays. So it’s alright considering it’s their Friday (the Dead Zone).