The CW’s latest plan to regain relevance is, uh, true crime?
Free from the popularity of superheroes, The CW is looking to do its own version of Dateline
We are officially living in in a world with a post-Arrowverse CW, and the network—with its new owners, Nexstar—is focusing in on its vision for a future free from superheroes, Winchesters, and… you know, other shows that people actually liked. A few months ago, The CW got in bed with a certain reputation-laundering golf tour, an explicit nod to Nexstar’s goal of skewing more closely to its ideal viewer (58-year-old men with bad taste), and now we know the next phase of its plan: Getting into true crime, the hottest trend of two or three years ago.
This comes from Deadline, which says The CW is working on “its own version of NBC’s Dateline, CBS’ 48 Hours, and ABC’s 20/20”—and you can tell this is a good idea because it’s already been done a bunch of times already. But that’s not just Deadline saying that, it’s The CW’s head of unscripted programming, Heather Olander, who specifically named those other shows while explaining that The CW is still trying to find an “overall brand” under which it can “insert all sorts of different crime stories.” What that basically means is that she wants The CW to literally do the Dateline/48 Hours/20/20 thing. There are no greater aspirations beyond that.
As for why true crime, Olander makes a pretty clear case for it: “What’s nice about true crime is it can also be scaled, you can do a lot of episodes, and it’s very efficient.” She even mentioned that it’s not a problem if they end up covering a true crime that someone has covered before, because if they can find one new detail or talk to one new person in a story that everyone has heard “a dozen times” it still “pulls in audiences.”
Now look, we know that making television is a business, especially for executives who aren’t necessarily in the trenches of production, but this was once a network that made art, you know? Serial killers and time travel on Riverdale, love triangles upon love triangles upon love triangles on The Vampire Diaries, “I Go To The Zoo” from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Super Hell on Supernatural. That was beauty. This is… efficient.