The CW is pulling the plug on its latest attempt to launch scripted comedies. Online-to-TV transplant Backpackers and Canadian import Seed are coming off the schedule immediately. Next Monday, the CW’s lineup was already pre-empted for the Young Hollywood Awards. For the two following Mondays, the network will air Arrow repeats behind an original and encore of Whose Line Is It Anyway? On August 18, the 21st cycle premiere of America’s Next Top Model will air in the hour, where the veteran reality series will spend six weeks before moving to its regular Friday 9 PM time slot. (Its lead-in will be Whose Line original and repeat on August 18 and magic series Masters Of Illusion and Whose Line rerun starting the following Monday.) Top Model originally was slated to return on August 22 it its Friday 9 PM berth. It now will be double-pumped for the first six weeks, with repeats airing on Fridays.
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The CW used Whose Line to launch Backpackers and Seed, each following an episode of Whose Line in Week 1. The network tried a different strategy in the second week, with an hour of Whose Line followed by the two comedies, also changing the order of the new series. Nothing worked, with both comedies pulling in a 0.2 in 18-49 in their premieres and Backpackers falling to a 0.1 this past Monday. “It wasn’t as successful as I hoped, to be launching Backpackers and Seed behind Whose Line,” CW President Mark Pedowitz acknowledged at TCA last week, reaffirming that the network’s goal continues to be “to use Whose Line as time goes on to see if we can launch other comedy, whether it be in the summer or in spring or alternative shows behind it. We believe our niche now for alternative is much more comedic reality. We feel that we’ll be far more successful with that than anything else.”
Related: CW Renews ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’
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