Broadcasting & Cable’s programming editor Daniel Holloway wrote a great cover story for last week’s edition which tracked the evolution of The CW, titled The CW’s Male-Pattern Boldness. Previously known as The WB and before that, UPN, The CW launched at the start of the 2006-2007 TV season as a broadcast network with affiliates, but similar to its predecessors, it established itself as a go-to network for white females aged 18-34 during primetime. Original programming included the ever-popular Gossip Girl (now on NetFlix), The Vampire Diaries,  America’s Next Top Model (which originally aired on UPN) and Supernatural (which originally aired on The WB).

That said, the network has slowly but surely expanded its audience with its programming decisions. The addition of new comic book-based series The Flash and to complement Arrow, The CW appears to be looking to diversify its audience. In fact, when Holloway asked CW President Mark Pedowitz about these new additions to the lineup, he commented that The CW is indeed looking to become “a broader 18-34-year old network. That’s how we looked at it. We wanted to have a more balanced appeal. By doing that, we’ve attracted more viewers. By doing that, it allowed us to find new advertisers who are coming to us.” That said, the “broadening” of the audience doesn’t seem to be gender-limited. But the content isn’t ‘Shondaland’ either. New dramedy Jane the Virgin is an adaption of a Venezuelan telenovela and details the unforeseen events that take place in the life of Jane Villanueva, a 23-year-old virgin whose gynecologist accidentally inseminated her with her boss’ sperm. The network has also greenlit another telenovela adaption for 2015 named First Lady. The network has also gotten involved with magic-themed programming. The network is developing The Illusionist, an adaption of the film which starred Edward Norton as a renowned illusionist, although in this case, said illusionist returns home from a decade in prison to find his wife married to the ruthless crime boss who framed him. The network has aired magic-themed programming in primetime on the unscripted side via Masters of Illusion and especially Penn & Teller: Fool Us, which garners an older audience than The CW has targeted in the past. Which of these shows are working, and which ones aren’t? How has the network fared on an quarterly basis since Pedowitz arrived since 1st quarter, 2012? Pedowitz arrived during 2011. What about the changes and median age and gender skew and the effect those may have on viewership? Let’s take a closer look at The CW primetime programming performance:

The CW Primetime Program Performance in 2014 To-Date (Live+SD)

The measurement includes all primetime programming to air this year to-date, a combination of the second-half of the 2013-2014 season, summer programming, and the start of the 2014-2015 season.  The table includes all CW primetime programs in 2014, sortable by program, median age, demo, day of week and timeslot. The first graph shows the top 10 rated programs among The CW’s traditional P 18-34 demo. Click on a demo header to hide it (ie. Click on P2+ to see P 18-34 only, and vice-versa):

The second graph includes the top 10 programs in terms of P 18-49 viewership, and how much their total viewership P2+ comes from the P 18-49 demo:

Looks like the comic book-based series are working for The CW so far. Brand new series The Flash is currently the network’s most-watched series of the year to-date in terms of average viewers P2+, P 18-34 and P 18-49. After being struck by lightning and thrown into a coma, forensic scientist Barry Allen awakens nine months later with new-found lightning speed and the ambition to become a superhero, “The Flash.” The program airs on Tuesdays at 8pm, and draws over half of its total viewership from P 18-49. The program has served as a solid lead-in to The CW mainstay Supernatural, 3rd overall in terms of total viewership P2+. 57.1% of the total viewership for Supernatural comes from P 18-49. Arrow is in 2nd in terms of total viewership with a 2.5 million total viewer average on Wednesdays at 8pm, but is 4th in terms of P 18-49 viewership. Only 44.2% of Arrow viewers hail from the P 18-49 demo.  Younger-skewing Vampire Diaries and teen apocalyptic drama The Hundred round out the top 5 in terms of total viewership, but Originals replaces The Hundred when it comes to P 18-49 viewership. Over 1 million of its 1.7 million come from the P 18-49 demo.

Looking at the P 18-34 graph at the top, The Flash tops the charts in terms of demo impressions. That said, it only sees 22% of its total audience hail from P 18-34. Vampire Diaries swaps places with Arrow, moving up from #4 in P2+ to #2 in P 18-34. Vampire Diaries sees 32% of its viewership hail from P 18-34, 12% more than The Flash. Jane the Virgin performs better in P 18-34 than it does in the older demos, while the magic-themed programming, particularly Penn & Teller: Fool Us, scores better in older demos than in younger ones. As is shown in the table below, the numbers for the non-scripted magic-themed programming aren’t great. Will this eventually have a negative impact on The Illusionist?

The table below shows all CW programs to air in primetime in 2014. Sort by program, timeslot, median age or demo rating/impressions by clicking on column header:

Originator	Program	Common Start Time	Common Day of The Week	P2+ Est. Median Age	P 2+ Proj (000s)	P 18-34 Rtg%	P 18-34 Proj (000s)	P 18-49 Rtg%	P 18-49 Proj (000s)	P 25-54 Rtg%	P 25-54 Proj (000s)
CW	FLASH	08:00 PM	TUESDAY	41.6	4242	1.39	948	1.69	2152	1.87	2234
CW	ARROW	08:00 PM	WEDNESDAY	48.0	2470	0.76	512	0.86	1092	0.97	1158
CW	SUPERNATURAL	09:00 PM	TUESDAY	39.5	2141	0.86	584	0.96	1222	0.98	1176
CW	VAMPIRE DIARIES	08:00 PM	THURSDAY	36.8	1936	0.91	615	0.88	1120	0.87	1037
CW	HUNDRED, THE	09:00 PM	WEDNESDAY	50.1	1833	0.43	289	0.59	749	0.70	836
CW	ORIGINALS	08:00 PM	TUESDAY	38.8	1725	0.69	469	0.79	1003	0.81	975
CW	PENN & TELLER:FOOL US	08:00 PM	WEDNESDAY	50.8	1685	0.39	262	0.53	668	0.66	785
CW	WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY	08:00 PM	FRIDAY	47.2	1588	0.44	295	0.54	680	0.62	740
CW	REIGN	09:00 PM	THURSDAY	47.0	1398	0.43	292	0.51	652	0.58	689
CW	JANE THE VIRGIN	09:00 PM	MONDAY	42.3	1352	0.47	318	0.49	626	0.55	662
CW	MASTERS OF ILLUSION	08:00 PM	FRIDAY	53.0	1282	0.23	156	0.33	417	0.41	489
CW	TOMORROW PEOPLE	09:00 PM	MONDAY	46.5	1198	0.35	239	0.44	561	0.50	600
CW	AMERICA’S TOP MODEL-15	09:00 PM	MONDAY	43.2	1022	0.37	251	0.37	473	0.40	480
CW	STAR-CROSSED	08:00 PM	MONDAY	45.7	972	0.22	152	0.33	415	0.38	454
CW	HART OF DIXIE	09:00 PM	FRIDAY	47.2	930	0.29	194	0.33	419	0.39	468
CW	CARRIE DIARIES	08:00 PM	FRIDAY	37.6	886	0.33	226	0.34	434	0.35	417
CW	COLIN & BRAD:TWO MAN GRP	09:00 PM	FRIDAY	45.6	872	0.22	149	0.31	393	0.37	448
CW	BEAUTY AND THE BEAST	09:00 PM	MONDAY	46.1	820	0.25	172	0.29	372	0.32	385
CW	FAMOUS IN 12	08:00 PM	TUESDAY	45.0	548	0.14	95	0.20	257	0.24	292
CW	SEED	09:00 PM	MONDAY	44.5	497	0.15	101	0.17	217	0.21	250
CW	BACKPACKERS	09:30 PM	MONDAY	45.6	462	0.13	87	0.17	218	0.20	239

The Flash and Jane the Virgin By Episode (L+SD)

Last week, Pedowitz announced that the broadcast network had upped its order for The Flash. The move takes The Flash‘s season order to 23 episodes, with Jane expanding to 22 episodes. The Flash opened with one of the biggest audiences for a CW show in Live+3 (6.2 million), dominating ABC’s millennial-skewing programs Selfie and Manhattan Love Story the time period — which is unusual for the network. Jane also received a 22-episode order, but the series has scored more modest numbers for the network, averaging over 1.3 million total viewers to-date (L+SD), half of whom are P 18-49. That said, the show’s early ratings and impressions are an improvement over CW shows that were previously in the Monday 9pm slot, including Beauty in The Beast which only averaged 820,000 total viewers earlier this year.

How have The Flash and Jane the Virgin performed over their first 3 episodes? Note: Episode 4 of The Flash aired last night (Tuesday) and numbers have not yet arrived. Click on a demo header in order to hide it:

Per the line graph, total viewership for both programs P2+ has plummeted on an episodic basis. The Flash, in particular, has lost an average of 600,000 total viewers per episode using Live+Same Day data only. Jane has lost around 300,000 total viewers per episode so far. Yes, it’s early but this has to be a tiny bit concerning. On the other side, viewership in the network’s coveted P 18-34 demo increased for both programs in episode 3 after enduring the usual drop from episode 1 to episode 2. Over on the P 18-49 side, both programs have seen a drop on an episodic basis. We’ll see later if episode 4 of The Flash was able to buck the trend when Tuesday night’s L+SD numbers roll in later today.

The CW Primetime Program Gender Skew (L+SD)

Program	P 2+ Proj (000s)	M 2+ Proj (000s)	F 2+ Proj (000s)	Male viewership	Female viewership
FLASH	4242	2546	1695	60.0%	40.0%
ARROW	2470	1351	1119	54.7%	45.3%
SUPERNATURAL	2141	976	1166	45.6%	54.5%
VAMPIRE DIARIES	1936	634	1301	32.7%	67.2%
HUNDRED, THE	1833	969	864	52.9%	47.1%
ORIGINALS	1725	662	1063	38.4%	61.6%
PENN & TELLER:FOOL US	1685	936	749	55.5%	44.5%
WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY	1588	730	857	46.0%	54.0%
REIGN	1398	435	964	31.1%	69.0%
JANE THE VIRGIN	1352	405	946	30.0%	70.0%
MASTERS OF ILLUSION	1282	671	611	52.3%	47.7%
TOMORROW PEOPLE	1198	641	557	53.5%	46.5%
AMERICA’S TOP MODEL-15	1022	289	733	28.3%	71.7%
STAR-CROSSED	972	430	541	44.2%	55.7%
HART OF DIXIE	930	307	622	33.0%	66.9%
CARRIE DIARIES	886	307	579	34.7%	65.3%
BEAUTY AND THE BEAST	820	302	518	36.8%	63.2%
FAMOUS IN 12	548	231	317	42.2%	57.8%
SEED	497	247	250	49.7%	50.3%
BACKPACKERS	462	232	230	50.2%	49.8%

7 of 20 CW primetime programs in 2014 have a male-majority audience, including 4 of the top 10. Only 4 CW primetime programs had a male majority audience in 2013, including 2 of the top 10. The two most-watched programs in 2014 to-date (total viewership P2+) The Flash and Arrow have a male-majority audience. The comic book-based shows and magic programming score male viewers, but they don’t do quite as well in the younger demos, particularly the magic show programs.

The CW Quarterly Primetime Performance (Live+SD)

Lastly, here’s how the network has performed by quarter in primetime since 1st quarter of 2012. Impressions, not ratings, are shown below:

 

Quarter	P 2+Proj (000s)	M 2+ Proj (000s)	F 2+ Proj (000s)	P 18-34 Proj (000s)	M18-34 Proj (000s)	F 18-34 Proj (000s)	P 18-49 Proj (000s)	M 18-49 Proj (000s)	F 18-49 Proj (000s)	P 25-54 Proj (000s)	M 25-54 Proj (000s)	F 25-54 Proj (000s)
QUARTER 1, 2012	1334	550	784	306	115	191	610	242	368	627	254	373
QUARTER 2, 2012	1117	462	655	242	85	157	497	196	301	514	211	302
QUARTER 3, 2012	971	426	545	190	78	112	400	170	230	427	186	240
QUARTER 4, 2012	1427	613	813	301	118	183	606	248	358	626	260	366
QUARTER 1, 2013	1360	595	765	267	110	157	560	239	321	599	259	340
QUARTER 2, 2013	1161	526	636	210	91	119	456	203	253	501	223	278
QUARTER 3, 2013	1097	489	608	196	85	112	420	185	235	463	206	257
QUARTER 4, 2013	1406	606	800	273	112	161	586	249	338	617	268	350
QUARTER 1, 2014	1369	598	771	241	106	135	555	245	309	610	272	338
QUARTER 2, 2014	1239	559	680	192	88	104	481	217	265	535	244	292
QUARTER 3, 2014	1066	491	575	151	72	78	386	185	201	458	220	238
QUARTER 4, 2014	1373	616	757	253	113	140	576	260	317	626	286	340

 

 

As was expected, median age has mostly increased over time per L+SD viewing data. That being said, 4th quarter to-date is providing the lowest median age of the year, though not quite as low as previous years. For 1st quarter 2012, it was 44.6; 1st quarter 2014, it was 49.6. For 2nd quarter 2012, it was 46.3; 2nd quarter 2014, it was 51.2. For 3rd quarter 2012, it was 48.7. 3rd quarter 2014, it was 52.2. For 4th quarter 2012 it was 47.6. In 2014, 4th quarter to-date, it’s 48.8 years.

In terms of total viewership, the current quarter is the network’s most-watched this year. That said, it is down from 4Q 2013 and 4Q 2012.  In terms of male viewership (M2+), the network is currently experiencing its most-watched quarter since this measurement started in Q1 2012. On the opposite side, Q4 total female viewership is down from Q4 2013 and 2012. Age is increasing, as is male viewership. Viewership in the younger demos, particularly females, seems to be taking a hit. Will this trend continue? Is this a cause for concern?