The CW has taken the suspense out of series renewals this season by picking up all 11 of its current scripted series — the 10 that are now on the air, plus returning Reign. The only renewal decision the network will have to make in May will be on midseason drama Containment, which will not premiere until April 19. Of the existing CW scripted series, the only one not on the list is Beauty and the Beast, which is coming back this summer for a fourth and final season.
Renewed for next season are freshmen DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend as well as The Flash (Season 3), Arrow (Season 5), veterans The Vampire Diaries (Season 8) and Supernatural (Season 12), The Originals (Season 4), iZombie (Season 3), Jane the Virgin (Season 3), The 100 (Season 4) and Reign (Season 4, sans departing co-star Torrance Coombs) .
I hear Supernatural stars Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles already had a deal in place that covers Season 12 and 13. The CW president Mark Pedowitz, a big fan of the show, had said repeatedly that the long-running series would continue for as long as the two stars want to do it. I hear that The Vampire Diaries leads Ian Somerhalder and Paul Wesley, whose contracts were up after this season, have re-upped for one more year and are set to come back next season.
Three of the renewed series — Jane, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Reign — come from CBS TV Studios, which is considered a threshold for the co-parent studio — with the rest being produced by the other CW sister studio, Warner Bros. TV.
The renewal of the CW’s entire current lineup does not mean that the network will pick up fewer new series. This season, it is introducing three freshmen, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Legends of Tomorrow and Containment, and it will likely add a similar number of new scripted series next season, as many as two on the fall schedule. Some of the renewed shows will be for midseason and/or summer, and not all of them are geeting full-season 22-episode orders. For instance, The 100 has been built for a limited run, and iZombie too is yet to air a full season.
Not all renewed series have done particularly well ratings-wise. While The Flash and Arrow have excelled, The Vampire Diaries has posted year-to-year declines, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend got off to a slow start. But the newbie has been a critical darling, winning awards for the network, and TVD, along with spinoff The Originals, has improved dramatically the CW’s performance on Friday.
DC Comics rule the program rankings at the CW, with The Flash (5.67 million, 2.3 in 18-49), Legends of Tomorrow (4.26 million, 1,7) and Arrow (3.99 million, 1.6) as the two 3 shows in total viewers and adults 18-49.
“The CW has become home to some of the most critically-acclaimed shows on broadcast television, with a wide array of fantastic scripted series across the week, ranging from musical comedy, to superhero action, to gritty sci-fi dramas,” said Pedowitz. “As we continue to further our strategy of more year-round original programming, picking up these 11 series for the 2016-2017 season puts us in a great position of having proven, high-quality shows to launch in the fall as well as midseason and summer of 2017.”
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