Former CW Bosses Dawn Ostroff and Mark Pedowitz Look Back at the Network’s First 20 Years

When Warner Bros. and CBS announced the merger of the WB and UPN on the morning of Jan. 24, 2006, the industry was shocked. There had been no rumblings that it might happen, as the two sides behind the deal somehow managed to keep it a secret. “Even then there weren’t many surprises that you could really pull off,” says Dawn Ostroff, who was president of UPN, and after the merger, became the CW’s entertainment president. “Nobody expected it. Those two networks had been competitors for 10 years, going after the same audience and had really been at each other’s throat. People were astonished!” Now, the CW has hit its 20th anniversary — living twice as long as its predecessors. And although the network has evolved under its new Nexstar ownership, for most of those first two decades the CW was known as the home for young adult-oriented series, including “Supernatural,” “Gossip Girl,” “The Vampire Diaries,” “Arrow,” “The Flash,” “One Tree Hill,” “Riverdale,” “Jane the Virgin,” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and “All American” — which just wrapped as the final drama from that two-decade era. Popular on Variety “The CW was always a place where you knew that the people loved the stories they were telling, and loved the shows that they were putting up there,” says Greg Berlanti, who had as many as nine series on the air simultaneously on the network, including massive hits “Arrow” and “The Flash.” “I think we’ll talk about those years at the CW as being a bit of a magical time in this art form.” Ostroff oversaw the birth of the CW, starting with making the difficult decisions of which shows from the WB and UPN to carry over and which ones would have to be canceled. That first year was difficult, Ostroff recalls, as no one understood what “CW” meant (it was the first initials of CBS and Warner Bros., but everyone thought it was “Country/Western,” she recalls). “Here we were, having to formulate a new network that combined those two companies, figuring out a new culture and creating something that everybody would feel a part of. It was a real challenge,” she says. That included audience confusion, as viewers weren’t sure where to find their favorite WB and UPN shows anymore. In some markets, the WB affiliate became the CW, and in other cities, it was the local UPN station that made the transition. “People say, ‘You started at ground zero,’ but I always say, ‘We started about 100 feet below ground zero!’” Ostroff says. “Because between everyone not knowing what CW was and everyone trying to find their favorite shows on different channels, it was just mass chaos.” But then came “Gossip Girl,” which became one of the first homegrown CW success stories. The series made waves starting with its marketing campaign, which promoted the show with the phrase “OMFG” on billboards and in TV spots. “The Vampire Diaries” became a phenom as well — including a Season 4 premiere poster that suggested a ménage à trois between the main characters. “We just made a lot of noise and finally figured out like how we were going to let people know what the CW was,” Ostroff says. Ostroff left in 2011, and Mark Pedowitz took over as the CW president. He familiarized himself with the network’s series by watching every episode, reading every script and then flying across North America to visit producers and talent on sets and over dinners. “We were small enough to do that, and other platforms weren’t really doing that,” he says. “The first show we went up to see was ‘Supernatural.’ And then we just started booking trips wherever they were shooting, whether it be Albuquerque, Toronto, New Orleans, Atlanta. It created a connection.” A year after Pedowitz joined, the CW launched “Arrow” — which would soon turn into a sprawling franchise with “The Flash,” “Supergirl,” “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow,” “Black Lightning” and “Batwoman,” all from Berlanti and Warner Bros. TV. Greg Berlanti with his “Arrowverse” stars Grant Gustin, Melissa Benoist, Caity Lotz and Stephen Amell in 2016. FilmMagic “It allowed us to broaden out from a demographic point of view,” Pedowitz says. “We never lost the roots of who we were, with ‘The Vampire Diaries’ and the rest But [the “Arrowverse”] was huge because it said that our programming, despite whatever limitations we might had had, was as good as anybody else’s.” And although Emmy recognition remained elusive — a sore subject for Pedowitz, who’s still fired up about that snub — shows like “Jane the Virgin” and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” both from CBS Studios, became critical faves and earned big Golden Globes wins. Neither show were ratings hits, but Pedowitz remembers being asked at the time why he kept both shows on the air: “I said, ‘I really like them and I can keep them on the air.’ And we did,” he says. “By the way, ‘Jane the Virgin’ worked extraordinarily well in streaming for us at the CW as well as for Netflix. ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ was very much a cult following, but it was so different, and no one’s really accomplished what [co-creator and star] Rachel Bloom did since then.” There’s a few that got away: “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” wound up at Netflix, and Pedowitz regrets not ordering the pilot “Haunted” to series. Plus, he now believes, “There was much more life left in ‘The Vampire Diaries’ universe.” Yet, the CW was able to survive and thrive thanks to its output deal with Netflix, which started in 2011 and allowed the network to become profitable through licensing. “We created a vibrant business,”Pedowitz says. “And we had the programming to make it vibrant.” That deal ended in 2019, as both CBS and Warner Bros. launched their own streaming services — and by 2022, both companies decided it was time to sell the CW to key affiliate partner Nexstar. Pedowitz looks back at his nearly 12 years running the CW with great memories. “It was the people. As the leader, you try to move it in the direction of the culture that you want to lead in,” he says. “But it’s all depending on the people. They create the culture.” And for 20 years, the CW viewers have agreed.