PRODUCTIONS / MARKETS / STRATEGIES GOSSIP GIRL AND THE CW: DEFINING A NEW NETWORK (YOU’RE NOBODY UNTIL YOU’RE TALKED ABOUT) ANAÏS LE FÈVRE-BERTHELOT Name Anaïs Le Fèvre-Berthelot ABSTRACT Academic centre Université Rennes 2 This paper analyzes how the teenage soap Gossip Girl was E-mail address
[email protected] crucial to the gendered strategy by which The CW (2006- 2012) defined itself in the post-network era. The CW relied KEYWORDS on narrowcasting, branding, and transmedia to attract The CW; Gossip Girl; post-network era; audience and keep a very specific share of the audience in order to commodity; feminist television criticism. create a viable fifth network. Analyzing The CW’s early years through Gossip Girl casts light on the evolutions that shaped US television industry’s during this period, from the renewed interest in female audiences to economic and technological convergence. 09 SERIES VOLUME IV, Nº 2, WINTER 2018: 09-18 DOI https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/8190 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TV SERIAL NARRATIVES ISSN 2421-454X INVESTIGATING THE CW PRODUCTIONS / MARKETS / STRATEGIES > ANAÏS LE FÈVRE-BERTHELOT GOSSIP GIRL AND THE CW: DEFINING A NEW NETWORK In 2014, CW president Mark Pedowitz proudly declared that part of a franchise, so its analysis demonstrates how media The CW was no longer “the Gossip Girl network” (Holloway convergence influenced the network’s marketing and narra- 2014). This statement points to the successful re-branding tive strategies during the “digital turn”. Ultimately, thinking of the network, which it pursued by diversifying its program about Gossip Girl in these terms helps to throw light on The schedule.