“We’re ready for people to stop writing about the Big Four networks and start writing the Big Five,” announced Brad Schwartz, The CW’s president of entertainment, at the top of a Thursday morning meeting with TV press.It’s an obvious aspiration for broadcast’s long-suffering stepchild, but the timing is a bit odd. The cachet of the “Big Four” — ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC — diminishes more and more each year, rendering the term more of a nostalgic catchphrase than an accurate representation of the true TV power brokers in the age of streaming saturation. Still, growth and a diversified (and, often, less expensive) programming portfolio is exactly what Nexstar Media Group has pursued after completing its acquisition of The CW in 2022. That’s involved a big gamble of the Saudi-backed LIV Golf league, canceling all but four scripted series in the inherited CW slate and banking big on acquisitions. Language around the latter is another label that Schwartz says he’s trying to change.“‘Imports’ is a word I don’t love,” he says of the largely Canadian dramas and comedies that have come to the network in the Nexstar era. “We’re trying to find stories that we love — and we look for partners. A lot of shows we’d love to do we can’t afford to do. Our goal is to drive this network toward profitability.”Schwartz went on to clarify that several of the series that started out as straight acquisitions — Son of a Critch, Sullivan’s Crossing — are now co-productions. And, when it makes sense, some series will originate in-house, as he says was the case with its new David Thewlis update on Sherlock Holmes called Sherlock & Daughter.The executive peppered his opening comments with a commitment to holdover CW dramas, particularly the Warner Bros.-produced All American — ”As long as they keep rating, there’s no reason we can’t keep doing them” — and announced new alternative projects based on Hasbro board games Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble. This still being The CW, one reporter in the crowd at the Langham Huntington ballroom, where the TCA presser was taking place, asked about the future of cult drama Supernatural. It was a non-starter. “We’ve had no discussion about any kind of spinoff,” added Schwartz, “but we’re really excited about the new season of Walker with [Supernatural star] Jared [Padalecki].”The question also served as a callback of sorts to The CW’s former era under CEO Mark Pedowitz, a vocal champion of what was the network’s longest-running scripted original. Supernatural, which ended in 2019 after 15 seasons, was one of the few shows that dated back to The WB Network and was a staple on The CW, with Pedowitz having tried multiple times to launch and succeed with a spinoff. Pedowitz, rather than gut the network he spent a decade-plus building out, stepped down from his post at The CW immediately after Nexstar assumed control of the network.It was a relatively strong and coherent conversation about a network that, even long before Nexstar’s acquisition, has been a bit of a punching bag. Where Schwartz and network president Dennis Miller seemingly stumbled was when pressed about the network’s more controversial choices — most notably its relationship with LIV Golf and a push into pro-policing reality series. In the wake of cancellations and subsequent rebirths of “Copaganda” projects like Live P.D. (facsimile On Patrol: Live now airs on Reelz) and Cops that often blatantly glamorize law enforcement in America, The CW is entering the space. Following the commission of true crime docuseries Crime Nation, the network ordered Police 24/7 — the latter being told from police points of view."Crime is an area that certainly works on TV,” said Schwartz, when the subjects of “Copaganda” and policing on TV came up in one question from the crowd. “It was an area we really wanted to explore.”As for Miller, he seemed nonplussed when asked about getting into business with the deep-pocketed LIV Golf league — an enterprise wholly backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, a wealth fund from a country long associated with allegations of human rights abuses. “Our focus was really on ‘Can we get high quality sports here at the network?'” Miller said. “We don’t get into the internal matters that are going on over there … It happened fairly quickly. It was fairly opportunistic at the time. The CW had no sports and they had no outlet here.”How The CW’s relationship with LIV might change, should the league’s proposed merger with the PGA come to fruition, is still not clear.But the main takeaway from Miller and Schwartz’s 45 minutes with members of the Television Critics Association wasn’t just that they weren’t particularly prepared for or interested in addressing rather obvious questions about controversial programming choices, it’s that the network’s new brand might be the absence of any brand altogether.“We talk a lot about that,” said Schwartz, when asked how sports, “blue skies” drama and a melange of unscripted added up to an identity. “If you’re in the broadcast business, you’re going after the largest audience possible. We have to do a lot of different things. We’re a big tent brand. We’re not a very specific brand.”Update: An earlier version of this story inaccurately described Crime Nation as a series being told from the points of views of police.
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