According to The Hollywood Reporter, Nexstar’s relatively new acquisition of The CW has completely pivoted from what The CW is known for. Nexstar has taken an approach to unscripted shows, cheaper shows and live sports in an attempt to increase profits substantially by 2025.
So far, The CW has lost approximately $78 million in the second quarter alone. Although, it seems that the margins may be looking up, as Nexstar executives seem fairly confident in their strategy to flip their network.
Nexstar acquired The CW for essentially nothing in the television world, they were also allegedly compensated for simply taking The CW off of Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount’s hands in October of 2022. Nexstar CEO, Perry Sook, devised plan to take a Moneyball approach when it came to The CW. Moneyball is, according to The Hollywood Reporter, “an analytics-based concept popularized by the Michael Lewis book.”
The CW will no longer host shows involving big budgets, superheroes but instead will be coming forth with reality TV shows and live sports. The CW has secured LIV Golf rights, ACC college basketball and football and also secured NASCAR Xfinity Series races.
Sook stated that The CW is “competing in the same league as the big four networks, but we’ve got to do it smartly, and crawl, walk, run. We’re going to take some smart bets and calculated risks.”
The CW chief Dennis Miller‘s contract was extended through 2027 and Sook also hired Michael Biard, Fox executive, to be Nexstar’s new COO and president. Sook says, “we have the team to get us where we want to go.”
In regards to hiring Biard, Sook visualized, “if you think about it, over time, with the same number of hours of weekday programming and its growing live sports portfolio, The CW is increasingly looking like Fox.”
The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are definitely bound to affect Nexstar’s ambitious goals for The CW, since they are moving toward unscripted reality television and sports, they will receive a much easier time to power through the strikes.