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First casualties of the CW

The WB-UPN merger has so far seen two WB shows prepare to bow out...

7th Heaven announced its impending exit sometime earlier (wouldn't know, having never watched the show), the people behind Charmed have announced that their final episode will air May 21st. The show, centered on a trio of witches, will wrap with its 8th season. I saw the show from time to time, but never developed into a solid fan. I suppose I also resented it for contining to make the cut on the WB when they first dumped Buffy (which UPN, coincidentally, picked up for two more seasons) and later Angel.

Comments

Anonymous said…
7th Heaven is WB's number one show, but it has been on the air so long that actor salaries and other expenses are so high that it is loosing money. Loosing money=bad. As for Charmed, Buffy, and Angel those shows are not big enough hits nor doing well in the ratings. UPN and WB have lost so much money and have done so bad since their arise in the 90s that they want to shed their images completely with the merge. If you notice Charmed, Buffy, and Angel are all sci-fi witches and vampires and UPN's closest show to that is Smallville which does much better than any of those shows in numbers. Lastly you clearly cannot cram two network's shows into one network. There is too much volume. Something, on both ends, will end up getting cut.
Well the leace your comment thing won't let me sign in so here's my blog address... http://swartzonmedia.wordpress.com/
10:41 AM
Mike Norton said…
Ratings numbers and what's determined to be profitable can be confusing at times. When I think back to the cancellation of Angel I recall that the show had a base of 4 million viewers according to the ratings. I know it's a matter of the economy of scale and going for the highest profitablility, but to essentially tell 4 million people that they're not important enough, well... since Angel shut down I've rarely had reason to go by the WB.

UPN largely lost me with the cancellation of Buffy -- not that I blamed them for that move, as the show was plainly tapped out by then - though I was upset with the WB for having dropped the show two seasons earlier.
11:59 AM
Anonymous said…
http://www.swartzonmedia.wordpress.com
The leading network NBC will cancel shows after a few episodes if they have a 6 million rating. If CW is going to try and come close to the success of NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX then they need more than 4 million viewer ratings for one show. However, getting into the top mix is a few years off, and for WB or UPN to have a 4 mill show is good, but the real reason is like I said...different direction for CW. I still think they want a new image and it is going to shy away from sci-fi.
http://www.swartzonmedia.wordpress.com
10:39 PM
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