The CW Is Officially Worthless…K-i-n-d of
I now know why Batwoman kept getting renewed, even in the face of its disastrous ratings and no, it wasn’t (primarily) the Woke.
The CW was recently sold, if that is even the word for it, to NexStar for the grand sum of $0.00. That’s right, the CW was a giveaway, a freebie, an off-the-cuffo. Downside, NexStar has to assume all of the CW’s debt. But is it really a downside?
This is actually a better deal for NexStar than it would appear to be on the face of it.
The CW started life as two 1990s wanna-be competitors to Fox, the WB, and UPN. UPN was started by Paramount and frankly, it always struggled. Its flagship show was Star Trek Voyager and that pretty much says it all. I will grant it had a few bright sparks here and there. Everybody Hates Chris, Veronica Mars and America’s Top Model were about it though.
The WB on the other hand did a lot better. It had Felicity, Buffy, Angel, Gilmore Girls, Smallville, and some others. Its real money maker was the Kid’s WB which was an all-animated block, when that declined in the mid-2000s so did the WB.
Consequently, when Battlestar Galactica tanked Star Trek Enterprise, UPN came to the WB and said, “let’s merge.” Warner Brothers had the controlling stake in the company and the new merger proceeded to stumble along like two drunks helping each other walk down the street.
Today it’s known for Woke and godawful young adult superhero shows and dramas both made on the cheap. They are very careful to select actors and actresses who will never be able to leave their WB shows for the movies because they don’t have that kind of talent or charisma.
The CW has one real asset, physical broadcasting affiliates. Sure, it’s a dying market but there is still blood to be squeezed from that stone. Frugal Boomers are still watching broadcast television rather than pay cable. It also makes more sense for some rural areas. Content for Boomers is the stated plan that NexStar has for the CW. This part is important, NexStar already owns the physical broadcasting stations the CW is affiliated with.
The debt load NexStar is assuming is considerable, but it is also debt that was piled up during the days of super low-interest loans. Biden’s inflation is actually useful to a company under these circumstances because the paper has an interest rate lower than inflation, thus making the debt worth less.
However, the better deal for NexStar is the fact that the CW has a ton of losses because of all the hot Woke garbage, like Batwoman it’s been making for years. In buying the CW, NexStar is also buying those losses. It’s a one-time deal but if NexStar has had a good year then the tax burden on its profits will vanish.
The upside for Warner Brothers and Paramount is simple enough, they get the damn thing off of their hands. The network is a bad joke and an embarrassment in the industry.
This brings us back to the years-long horror of Batwoman. Deals like this one are often years in the making. As sick as this is, I think that the reason Batwoman was continued for years was because it was so bad. The producers may have thought they were producing super Woke content that would spread The Message. But the fact that there are low-level YouTubers that have more views than a typical episode of Batwoman gives lie to that. You can’t spread a message if no one reads it. What Batwoman was really doing all those years was racking up losses.
Lose hard enough and you become a different kind of winner. At least to the right company. Batwoman’s losses actually made the CW more valuable.
Okay, I’m done here.
