The CW has reached its 20th anniversary as a network with a very different identity from the one many viewers remember. Long associated with young-adult scripted drama, the broadcaster has been remade under Nexstar, which acquired it in 2022. Its current playbook emphasizes live sports, acquired procedural dramas, and unscripted series built to run in both primetime and syndication.
The clearest recent evidence for that pivot arrived on Aug. 29, when the CW’s Florida State versus New Mexico State college-football broadcast averaged 2.1 million viewers. The game was the network’s most-watched sports telecast to date and, on that Saturday night, put the CW ahead of ABC and CBS in total viewers. That does not establish a permanent new order among broadcasters, but it does show why live events are central to the network’s revised strategy.
For a network that had only been in sports for three years, the moment carried extra weight. Live sports can gather viewers at the same time in a way that scheduled dramas and on-demand viewing often do not. Nexstar’s approach is therefore less about recreating the old CW model with different shows and more about making its broadcast stations stronger through programming that encourages real-time viewing.
A break from the original CW formula
Before the ownership change, Warner Bros. and CBS used the CW as an outlet for youth-focused dramas from their respective studios. That programming helped define the network’s public image, but Nexstar has pursued a broader audience and a lower-cost structure. CW president Brad Schwartz has described the shift as necessary for a network intended to become profitable and serve local stations effectively.
The transition has now reached a meaningful symbolic endpoint. All American, the final scripted series carried over from the previous ownership era, concluded with its series finale on Sept. 28. Its ending does not mean scripted television is leaving the CW. Rather, it marks the point where the network’s new sourcing and scheduling approach is no longer sharing the stage with a remaining legacy original.
That distinction matters. The new CW is not simply programming fewer dramas. It is redistributing its hours among formats with different purposes: live sports can drive appointment viewing; procedural imports can provide accessible episodes; and heavily ordered game shows or documentary series can be reused in daytime and fringe slots.
What “procedural” means here
A procedural is generally a drama structured around a case, problem or investigation that is substantially addressed within an episode. Such shows may still have continuing character arcs, but their episodic format can make them easier for viewers to enter without extensive knowledge of prior installments. That accessibility is useful for a broadcaster seeking a broad schedule rather than a narrowly targeted serialized-drama brand.
The CW’s acquired slate includes Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, Wild Cards, Sullivan’s Crossing, and the upcoming Private Eyes West Coast. Several of these shows originate in Canada, reflecting a strategy of acquiring efficiently produced series instead of relying exclusively on costly U.S. originals.
This is not an argument that every imported or lower-cost drama is interchangeable. A series still needs a compelling premise, reliable execution and an audience fit. But acquisitions give the CW a way to maintain scripted options while avoiding dependence on the exact production pipeline that powered its earlier era. Lionsgate Television Group chair Kevin Beggs pointed to Schwartz’s prior programming of Canadian import Schitt’s Creek at Pop TV as an example of how an efficiently budgeted show can still become a critical and awards success.
Sports has become the schedule’s foundation
CW Sports began with LIV Golf and expanded into Atlantic Coast Conference college football, later adding Mountain West and Pac-12 conference deals. The network’s sports roster also includes Professional Bowlers Association coverage, AVP beach volleyball and live WWE NXT on Tuesdays. WWE is a notable reunion: Smackdown was part of the CW’s original 2006 launch, while NXT returned the wrestling company to the network in 2024.
The biggest long-term commitment named in the lineup is a seven-year NASCAR agreement covering the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series. The package contains 33 races annually. NASCAR executive Brian Herbst said the series’ viewership rose 6% this year on the CW after a 9% increase the preceding year. Those figures concern the series specifically, not the entire network, but they offer one concrete sign that the property is growing on its new free-to-air home.
Free-to-air is important in this context. It means viewers can access a broadcast signal without a cable subscription, and the CW’s reach extends across more than 120 million TV homes. Nexstar also operates local stations, creating a second layer to the sports strategy: sports viewers are brought to the station itself, potentially strengthening awareness of the broader local channel brand.
For fans who follow motorsport across television and games, the overlap is a reminder that racing remains a useful bridge between entertainment formats. The CW’s NASCAR programming is television rather than interactive software, but racing audiences increasingly move between broadcasts, simulations and management games. For a current gaming-side look at the genre, see the first gameplay details for Motorsport Manager 2.
Schwartz said the CW will carry 700 hours of live sports this year, compared with none only a few years earlier. The network expects to program more than 1,250 hours overall, with live sports representing nearly half of that output. Those totals illustrate more than a genre shift: the CW is operating with a substantially larger programming footprint than the earlier model in which it regularly supplied two hours nightly, seven days a week.
Why repeatable unscripted shows matter
Sports may be the high-impact component of the makeover, but the non-sports schedule is being shaped around repeatability. The cop docuseries Police 24/7 and game shows Scrabble, hosted by Craig Ferguson, and Trivial Pursuit, hosted by LeVar Burton, received large episode orders. The point is not only to fill primetime but also to provide episodes that can later air in daytime or other non-primetime periods on Nexstar stations.
Syndication refers to the licensing or distribution of a program for broadcast outside its initial network run. A large order matters because local schedules need volume. One or two episodes cannot sustain a weekday strip; a deeper library can. Nexstar networks president Sean Compton said the three series debuted in fall syndication with 94% clearance across the United States. In television scheduling, clearance describes the share of markets or stations that have committed to carry a program.
The strategy also reduces reliance on the major studios at a time when the syndication market is described as thinner. Instead of treating a show’s primetime season and its later station life as separate businesses, the CW is commissioning formats intended to serve both roles. That is a practical programming decision: a police docuseries or game show with a durable premise can be scheduled more flexibly than a heavily serialized drama with a short episode count.
What viewers should and should not infer
The CW’s current direction does not erase the cultural significance of its prior YA era. The young-skewing relationship drama, supernatural series and serialized storytelling associated with the network remain influential as a programming type. Schwartz identified Netflix’s Wednesday and Prime Video titles Sterling Point, Off Campus and The Summer I Turned Pretty as examples of shows that would have felt at home on the classic CW.
What has changed is the business calculation behind where that material lives. The CW is prioritizing programming that fits a network supported by a large local-station group: live events that can draw substantial simultaneous audiences, broad dramas that can be acquired efficiently, and unscripted franchises that can keep working after their first primetime broadcasts.
That approach does not guarantee that every sports deal, procedural or game show will connect. A single football telecast or annual viewership increase does not settle the question of long-term audience loyalty. But Nexstar has made its logic unusually visible in the makeup of the schedule. Sports supply scale and urgency; acquisitions maintain a scripted presence; and large unscripted orders provide reusable inventory.
Twenty years after the CW’s launch, the name remains but the network’s operating model has decisively changed. Its most revealing milestone may be that 2.1 million-viewer college-football night: a broadcaster once defined chiefly by its young-adult dramas now sees live sports not as a side project, but as a central route to station value, audience growth and a sustainable future.
