This afternoon, The CW has handed out early renewals to five of its drama hits - freshman dramas The Originals and Reign as well as established hits Supernatural, Arrow and The Vampire Diaries for their tenth, third and sixth seasons, respectively. The pickups were announced today by Mark Pedowitz, President, The CW.
"This season we've had great success with our new hit series The Originals paired with Supernatural, giving us our best Tuesday nights in years. The Vampire Diaries is #2 in its time period in the young adult demos, and with Arrow continuing to gain among young men, and Reign growing its time period, we now have strong nights on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday," said Pedowitz. "I'm very pleased to announce early pickups for all five series, and let our fans know they'll have more great drama to look forward to next season.
The pickups for The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural, Arrow and The Originals are not that surprising - as they are the highest rated series airing on the broadcast network right now. The early renewal for Reign is a tad surprising. However, the network know it was going to be a change of pace from their typical scripted offerings. It does lose a chunk of its The Vampire Diaries lead-in every week but it has been holding steady in the key demo in 2014. It's been meeting The CW's expectations and is not the most pressing issue on their schedule right now. Locking it down now, not only gives fans to breathe a sigh of relief but for the network to try to fix their problems elsewhere.
The series still awaiting news on renewal or cancellation include The Carrie Diaries (which wrapped its 13-episode 2nd season in January), Beauty and the Beast (which is doing poorly on Mondays), The Tomorrow People (which regularly loses most of its Arrow lead-in and will likely drop further in its move to Mondays) and Hart of Dixie (which is moving to Fridays in March but also needs one more season to hit the syndication mark).
Additionally, The CW has new dramas Star-Crossed - bowing on Monday, February 17 - and The 100 - debuting in mid-March on Wednesdays. As well as a very active development season, which includes potential spinoffs of both Arrow and Supernatural.
