One of the tangential moves in the restructuring of Warner Bros. Discovery has been the sale of The CW, Warner’s joint network with CBS. The buyer (with 75%) has been NextStar and with it several changes were already anticipated that are already being seen. Among them, the resignation of the network’s CEO, Mark Pedowitz.
A quite logical resignation because the information already pointed to its new owners they weren’t very into keeping the line (or quantity, rather) of fiction that the chain has carried up to now. And the head of this architect, who will be replaced by the veteran television executive, Dennis Milleris the mark that indicates the expected change of era.
A new era that we still don’t know much about but that, seen the upfronts of last May, have much fewer series and, probably, the revision of some of the most ambitious projects opened and promoted under Pedowitz’s supervision, such as the new ‘ Babylon 5’.
Making television to comment
Although he was not there since the birth of the network (which in turn was the merger of UPN and TheWB), Mark Pedowitz was named CEO of it in 2011, beginning a decade in which The CW transformed in a place to bring together both the fan of superheroes (‘Arrow’), and that of youth science fiction (‘The 100’).
All without, incidentally, driving away to which until then was its majority audience: young women. We would continue to have fictions like ‘Hart of Dixie’ or ‘The Carrie Diaries’, joined by more stimulating proposals of unquestionable quality like ‘Jane the Virgin’ or ‘Crazy Ex-girlfriend’, which burst onto the scene of major awards and topped lists of the best of the year.
Something that the executive is quite proud of in the letter he sent to his employees and friends:
“Together we have achieved a lot. This nascent network with its unique mix of programming brought The CW to the forefront of pop culture and social media. We made television to comment at coffee time in a multiplatform world. We took what the audience wanted and gave it to them.”
And it did so by allying itself with streaming in a multi-platform landscape to which it was quickly adopted. One of Pedowitz’s big moves was making a huge billion-dollar deal with Netflix. that allowed them to amortize their series and gave the chain (and its owners) a certain security in their productions.
This led to a gradual growth in the original series, including all a arrowverse that the executive promoted together with DC and Greg Berlanti. In fact Berlanti assures that it was Pedowitz who saved ‘Supergirl’ after the cancellation on CBS and who brought ‘Black Lightning’ after being discarded by FOX. Additionally, the executive inspired the creation of ‘Legends of Tomorrow’ by noting how he would like to see more of the Arrowverse’s supporting cast.
It must be admitted that in recent years yes, there was a little wear on the implanted model by Pedowitz, perhaps more so by the changing landscape of television. Gobbled up by OTTs, linear broadcasting is seen as secondary and the CEO has always fought against it.