INVESTIGATING THE CW. GUEST EDITED BY MÉLANIE BOURDAA, CLAIRE CORNILLON AND SHANNON WELLS-LASSAGNE VOLUME IV, No 02 · WINTER 2018 EDITORS Veronica Innocenti, Héctor J. Pérez and Guglielmo Pescatore. ASSOCIATE EDITOR Elliott Logan GUEST EDITORS Mélanie Bourdaa, Claire Cornillon, Shannon Wells-Lassagne SECRETARIES Luca Barra, Paolo Noto. 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ISSN 2421-454X DOI Cover illustration Javier Pastor https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/v4-n2-2018 INDEX EDITORIAL 5 INTRODUCTION: INVESTIGATING THE CW MÉLANIE BOURDAA, CLAIRE CORNILLON, SHANNON WELLS-LASSAGNE PRODUCTIONS / MARKETS / STRATEGIES 9 GOSSIP GIRL AND THE CW: DEFINING A NEW NETWORK (YOU’RE NOBODY UNTIL YOU’RE TALKED ABOUT) ANAÏS LE FÈVRE-BERTHELOT 19 ANGELS, DEMONS AND WHATEVER COMES NEXT: THE STORYWORLD DYNAMICS OF SUPERNATURAL FLORENT FAVARD 27 THE CW ARROWVERSE AND MYTH-MAKING, OR THE COMMODIFICATION OF TRANSMEDIA FRANCHISING CHARLES JOSEPH CULTURE / RECEPTION / CONSUMPTIONS 47 ‘QUALITY SERIES’ AND THEIR PRODUCTION CULTURES: TRANSNATIONAL DISCOURSES WITHIN THE GERMAN TELEVISION INDUSTRY FLORIAN KRAUSS 61 QUALITY TV AND SOCIAL DISTINCTION: AN EXPERIMENT ON HOW COMPLEX TELEVISION SERIES VALORIZE THEIR USERS DANIELA M. SCHLÜTZ, KATHARINA EMDE-LACHMUND, HELMUT SCHERER, AND JONAS WEDEMEYER NARRATIVES / AESTHETICS / CRITICISM 77 THE WIRE AND THE DEMOCRACY OF FICTION ARIANE HUDELET 91 CLASS CONCERNS IN A HERITAGE SETTING: VIEWERS’ RESPONSES TO DOWNTON ABBEY ON IMDB HELGE RIDDERSTRØM 103 “WHEN YOU SEE ME AGAIN, IT WON’T BE ME”. TWIN PEAKS FROM THE MULTICHANNEL ERA TO THE DIGITAL ERA CARLOTTA SUSCA EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION: INVESTIGATING THE CW MÉLANIE BOURDAA CLAIRE CORNILLON SHANNON WELLS-LASSAGNE Scholarship focusing on channels like HBO (Jones 2008, The aim of this collection is to understand the importance of Leverette et al. 2008), MTV (Banks 1996, Denisoff 2017), or The CW in the American televisual landscape today, and to Lifetime (Newman and Witsel 2016) – not to mention the rap- point out both the specificities of this network and the extent idly developing cottage industry of Netflix analyses (Keating to which it functioned as echo and indeed harbinger of televi- 2012, Barker and Wiatrowski 2017, Jenner 2018) – reveals the sion’s rapid evolutions. Very little work has been done on this degree of academic interest in television’s post-network niche network’s series, despite being among the most innovative in marketing. While television studies has focused on subscrip- terms of marketing and audience relations, and thus worthy tion cable and streaming productions, free-to-air network of study in their own right. A case study of The CW allows us shows have largely been left aside, particularly in France, to analyze these little-studied series, and to blend approaches where all our contributors are based. This is one of the rea- that may help us understand this type of fiction. sons we decided to organize a symposium on the latest of the Formed in 2005 from the merger of The WB and UPN American networks, The CW, and to publish some of the more (under the aegis of CBS and Warner Bros., the C and W of its exemplary examples from that research in this issue of Series. moniker), The CW initially seemed to take on the identifying 05 SERIES VOLUME IV, Nº 2, WINTER 2018: 05-08 DOI https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/8809 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TV SERIAL NARRATIVES ISSN 2421-454X INVESTIGATING THE CW EDITORIAL > MÉLANIE BOURDAA, CLAIRE CORNILLON, SHANNON WELLS-LASSAGNE · INTRODUCTION characteristics of its predecessors. Both networks followed an efficient model in the quickly changing environment of FOX’s lead in creating content suited for a niche market, a contemporary television. strategy made profitable by the fragmentation of the market Analyzing the history of The CW and its principal fictions with the rise of cable television. The WB thus “target[ed] pro- reveals that the network has built a specific identity. It is an gramming specifically to teens and young adults”, while UPN identity based less in genres, formats or style, but more in “adopt[ed] ‘black block’ programming” (Ross and Stein 2008: the network’s way of addressing its specific and very engaged 15) and the new network initially broadcast shows from both audience. The CW is perhaps the most successful network channels. As our contributor Anaïs Lefèvre-Berthelot reminds in recent history to have created content associated with us, this dual focus soon grew even narrower, as the network cult television (with its attendant benefit of loyal fans). As broadcast fiction intended to appeal to young women1, be- Catherine Johnson reminds us, this has long been a strategy fore new president Mark Pedowitz chose to focus program- for broadcast and cable networks: ming on the wider audience available in superhero fictions based on DC comics, a change detailed in the article by Increasingly, network US television has actively at- Charles Joseph. Over the years of its existence, The CW has tempted to create cult television with programmes indeed come to establish its own identity; Florent Favard uses and marketing strategies designed to encourage the sole example of programming that pre-dates the channel and reward loyal viewing and active participation. itself – long-running scifi/horror show Supernatural – to chart As such, cult television and fan audiences are no the channel’s evolution from its earliest days. longer understood by the industry as marginal,