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The executive who once brought ‘Schitt’s Creek’ to Pop TV talks with The Hollywood Reporter about the future of the network’s current originals and mandates to make broader, highly watched originals that also happen to be profitable.
By Lesley Goldberg
Television Editor, West Coast
It’s official: Former Pop TV president Brad Schwartz has been tapped to serve as entertainment president at the Nexstar-controlled CW. The executive had been consulting for The CW under former network CEO Mark Pedowitz after a short-lived stint as head of originals at Audible. Schwartz, whose hiring had been rumored, will report to former Nexstar board member-turned-CW president Dennis Miller as the station group begins its efforts to turn the fifth broadcast network into a profitable one that also reaches a broad audience.
In his new role, Schwartz will be charged with leading The CW’s programming strategy, including day-to-day operations, as well as its creative and brand development. In Schwartz, who brought Canadian comedy Schitt’s Creek to the U.S., Nexstar gets an executive with closer ties to the creative community as sources say Miller was not well known among buyers, sellers or showrunners.
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Station group Nexstar officially took control of The CW in October after buying a controlling 75 percent stake in the network from CBS Studios and Warner Bros. TV (who each retain a 12.5 percent share). Nexstar CEO Perry Sook has outlined plans to make The CW profitable by 2025. The CW was never designed to be a profitable venture but rather as a profit vehicle for CBS Studios and Warners, both of whom made billions by selling international and streaming rights to such originals as The Flash and Nancy Drew. With the emergence of their respective streamers, HBO Max and Paramount+, both studios opted to end its $1 billion output deal with Netflix as well as keep international rights. With both revenue streams having dried up and the price of its formerly lower-budget originals rising amid pandemic-related costs and demand for top stars and showrunners, Paramount-backed CBS Studios and Warner Media Discovery’s Warners opted to abandon The CW.
The pending sale led both studios to cancel more than half of The CW’s originals back in May. With Nexstar having taken formal control of the network that catered to young adults 18-34 last month, Pedowitz exited after an 11-year run in which he built a universe of DC Comics dramas and brought men to the formerly female-leaning outlet. Sources note Pedowitz, who had time remaining on his contract and was fully expected to stay, opted to leave following an 11th hour clash about his new reporting structure. That prompted Nexstar to turn to Miller, a former investor who spent years as a partner at Bear Stearns’ Constellation Ventures and whose most recent ties to Hollywood included a role at an indie production group who produced series including Discovery’s 90 Day Fiance. That created a need for Schwartz, who tells The Hollywood Reporter in an extensive interview that viewers should expect a “reinvention” of the network under Nexstar.
“We need to run a profitable broadcast network and it’s going to take a bit of reinvention and rethinking to create a brand with content that brings in a lot of audience, that works for the stations and can be monetized properly,” Schwartz says. “It’s an exciting new challenge. It’s a complete rethinking. All the other broadcast networks are profitable so we have to think about how to make this one profitable.”
Hollywood, of course, is skeptical. Since axing 10 shows in May, Schwartz inherits The CW’s smallest slate of U.S. scripted originals since 2012. A third of the network’s current 12 U.S. scripted shows — The Flash, Nancy Drew, Riverdale and Stargirl — are ending in the current 2022-23 season with more expected to follow. The 12 number is significant as it represents the volume of shows produced by CBS and Warners that Nexstar has agreed to air this season. (The agreement, however, does not seem to cover additional episodes though.) But what happens after that?
To hear Schwartz tell it, The CW will need to be “scrappy” and “nimble” going forward with programming that makes money for Nexstar. The CW is looking to dramatically lower the licensing fees that they pay to studios — both Warners and CBS as well as outside buyers, per Schwartz — in an effort to make programming profitable.
“It’s not good for the creative community,” one studio source tells THR of Nexstar’s CW intentions. “The network as we know it is gone.”
Schwartz, a self-professed CW fanboy who starts Nov. 7, has “hope” that The CW will continue to be a home for originals like Walker and Superman & Lois. Both shows, along with All American and its Homecoming spinoff, Kung Fu, Gotham Knights, Walker: Independence and Supernatural prequel The Winchesters are all officially square on the bubble.
“I’m looking forward to meeting and talking about it all,” Schwartz says when asked what his message to current CW showrunners, writers and producers who are eager to know what the future holds. “I don’t know the answers yet. But I’m looking forward to digging in. The CW is still a huge platform — one of five. We’ll have to be contrarian and think differently but that shouldn’t get in way of ambition.”
To be sure, Schwartz has been in this situation before. The exec joined Pop in 2013 when it was owned by Lionsgate and known as TV Guide Network. There, Schwartz worked with Miller as co-presidents before he oversaw a rebranding of the cable network into a home for syndicated content including ER and Dawson’s Creek. A year later, Schwartz introduced American audiences to Dan Levy and the Emmy-winning phenomenon that became Schitt’s Creek. Though most viewers found the show on Netflix, the streaming deal was one that was beneficial for Viacom after the conglomerate now known as Paramount Global acquired the cable network. Schwartz used the critical praise for Schitt’s Creek as a launchpad for Pop to enter the scripted originals space with programming like Flack and Florida Girls, both of which were well reviewed and ultimately canceled as Viacom gutted the network in March 2020 as part of a wave of cost-cutting moves.
“I want to do amazing culture-breaking stuff — scripted and unscripted — and look at all the holes in market and what people aren’t doing. We may have fewer resources than NBC and CBS but that doesn’t mean we can’t beat them. We just have to be scrappier. If we do scripted, we have to figure out a smart way of doing it,” Schwartz says.
Given the current price tag on U.S. scripted originals, Schwartz will need to be scrappy. In the wake of the pandemic, testing and delays have only added to programming costs that were already climbing amid a peak TV era demand for everything from experienced showrunners and proven stars to locations and directors. Schwartz points to Insecure showrunner Prentice Penny’s first series, Fuse’s The Hustle, and Billy on the Street, the Billy Eichner comedy that sources say cost a mere $120,000 per episode in season one, as examples of frugal success as both were produced on a budget under Schwartz. Miller, too, acknowledged Schwartz’s experience in building a slate on a budget in a statement Wednesday: “I have had the pleasure of working closely with Brad and I have seen his entrepreneurial approach to reinvigorating brands,” he said. “He knows how to develop and acquire hits with limited resources, nurture talent, and broaden the appeal of diverse media assets.”
In the immediate future, Schwartz says, “job number one” when he begins next week is a familiar one when you “refresh” and start a new business: “Who is the audience? What type of content connects? It’s my job to figure that out.”
Read on for the full Q&A:
What sort of consulting work had you been doing for The CW prior to Nexstar and why?
After the Pop TV thing happened, Mark Pedowitz asked me to consult in couple areas. One was trying trying to find some Canadian co-productions, which I’ve done in my past, and to dig in to seeing if there’s a way to grow digital and digging into marketing with Rick Haskins and into acquisitions with Kevin Levy. It was strategy and programming work. So it was come meet the team and learn the culture. I’ve always loved The CW, when Mark called I jumped at it.
What were some of the shows you helped bring over?
Kevin Levy does all that. We found Bump from Australia, Family Law and Coroner are on now. One of the shows that I really love was Trickster and it did well on The CW. But because of some controversy in Canada about the creator’s heritage the CBC had to cancel it after one season. There were a few others. And I did some long-term strategy about building out the AVOD platform and expanding it beyond the small library they had.
Nexstar has vowed to make The CW profitable by 2025. How do they plan on doing that considering as it is constructed now, it wasn’t designed to be profitable?
It was an exceptionally successful company under the old business model; CBS and Warner Bros. made a lot of money on the shows. They got to make shows from Gossip Girl to Vampire Dairies, Riverdale and The Flash that broke through in culture. There was a business model there that worked. And now it’s a different business model. Now we need to run a broadcast network that is profitable. So, it’s going to take a bit of reinvention, re-thinking … [and] creating a brand and content that brings in a lot of audiences, that works for the stations and that can be monetized properly. It’s an exciting new challenge and it’s a complete re-think: all the other broadcast networks are profitable, so we have to think about how to make this one profitable.
“Creating a brand”? But The CW already has a brand. How do you see that changing?
When I started at the TV Guide Network, we did some research and audience studying about how do you break through against all the other channels and we created Pop TV and we did what we did. We’re going to have to think about it. I agree, CW has a really strong brand. I have immense respect for everybody that’s built it. We’re going to have to figure out what the right path forward is because we’ve got to get bigger and we’ve got to get profitable. And some of these shows aren’t very profitable.
Which shows aren’t profitable?
I haven’t looked at budgets yet — I don’t start for a bit. I see the Nielsen ratings and have an idea of what their license fees are like and they don’t participate in how those shows get monetized internationally or in how they’re monetized in streaming. They have their window on their digital platform and if I do the math, the numbers that they’re delivering make some of those shows not profitable. But I have to dig into it to find out. I have to learn a lot more.
What’s your mandate there as it’s been explained to you?
Make it bigger, make it profitable. Be scrappy and have a passionate team that is excited about the challenge ahead. Make it profitable, create content that breaks through in culture and makes the channels proud and makes audiences want to watch. It’s a little bit of a reinvention.
Will The CW be a home for U.S. scripted originals under Nexstar?
I hope so. Yes, absolutely. The thing about what I’ve done well in my career, whether it was doing Martin Gero’s first show or Prentice Penny’s first show or Dan Levy’s first show or Billy Eichner’s first show is that having comparatively lesser resources doesn’t get in the way of ambition. One of my most proud moments at Pop TV was having a full team meeting and looking out at everybody and saying, “We competed with titans, with the smallest resources in the industry, and we beat them.” To answer your question, I want to do amazing, culture breaking stuff in scripted and unscripted and look at all holes in market and what other people aren’t doing. Even though we might have lesser resources than NBC or CBS, that doesn’t mean that we can’t beat them. We just have to be a little scrappier. It’s not as easy as saying there won’t be scripted; I think if we do scripted, we have to figure out a smart way of doing it, much like when we did Prentice Penny’s first scripted show, The Hustle, at Fuse. We did it really scrappy with a really small budge and we won an Image Award. There’s ways of being scrappy but still having great ambition.
At the same time, The CW shows are already among the lowest-budgeted on TV — especially the three first-year shows that were ordered when Nexstar was clearly going to be the network’s new owners. How much lower will The CW budgets get considering they’re already at or near the bottom?
We’re going to have to be innovative about it. Those shows, even though The CW pays a certain license fee for them, CBS and Warners get to monetize those shows internationally; they monetize them by licensing them to their own streamers or licensing them to others. But you have CW shows that are some of the top shows on Netflix. Even a smaller show like In the Dark or Dynasty, those are huge on Netflix but the actual current business plan, The CW doesn’t make those revenues. That is what we need to completely rethink so that when we make content, we can make sure we monetize it profitably. I know a lot of people are saying it’s going to be all cheap unscripted and co-productions. We’re going to be scrappy and innovative about putting great content on the air and there’s going to be lots of different ways of doing that.
Such as?
I haven’t gotten into it yet.
The easiest way to do that is to own your content, where you get to be the one controlling streaming and international rights. Is that something you’re considering?
You have to, 100 percent. If you read the numbers in the press, Schitt’s Creek just sold to Hulu for $100 million. That $100 million went to Pop TV, which is Viacom [aka Paramount Global]. If we didn’t have those rights, they’d have gone to somebody else. You just have to be innovative and think differently than everybody else. That’s how we’re going to have to win.
How much will the network as people have come to know it change under Nexstar?
It’s going to get a lot bigger and a lot broader. The programming needs to bring larger audiences to it. There was a great conference last week where the head of CBS scheduling said, “We’ve got nine shows that do 10 million viewers a week and they don’t get the credit against all the streaming billions of minutes, etc.” I don’t know if there’s a show on The CW that does more than 1 million. I think we’ve got to get bigger and to do that, you might have to get a little broader. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do cool stuff. Schitt’s Creek was amazingly broad. Parents and kids watched that, usually together. Even something like One Day at a Time. It doesn’t mean you have to be broad for broad sake. You can still do really cool, breakthrough stuff.
DC Comics has a broad audience — look no further than the box office for Black Adam — will DC be part of that bigger, broader strategy?
I don’t know yet.
There were layoffs this week at The CW, we’ve heard they included PR and some photo editors, which followed larger layoffs including Pedowitz’s top lieutenants in Haskins as well as heads of finance and PR. Will there be more? Will you keep the existing programming team?
I have no idea. I have to meet everybody and we’ve got to figure out what the new challenge is, where the opportunities are and to make sure we have a team of people who are passionate about going after it. I look forward to talking to everybody about that challenge.
Will the future of The CW look more like Pop TV — with foreign acquisitions and lower cost originals like Flack and Florida Girls — or WGN America, which Nexstar transformed into News Nation?
It’s fair to look to Pop TV. But that’s just one strategy. The idea of being able to do breakthrough scripted content efficiently and stuff that breaks through in culture, that’s something I’ve always been able to do in my career and would love to keep doing that. We’ll figure out what the right mix of that is and unscripted. We’ve got lots to figure out. I’d love to keep doing stuff like One Day at a Time and Florida Girls and Flack and some of the great stuff I thought we were doing at Pop.
Is there a CW show that’s a good example of what you want to keep doing going forward?
I don’t think I can answer that.
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin were not expensive shows to start …
Those would have been perfect Pop TV shows. There is such a track record of culture breaking stuff on The CW. I’ve always dreamed of working there and been so enamored by them. Whether it’s Crazy Ex, Gossip Girl, Jane the Virgin, Riverdale or The Vampire Diaries or even bringing 7th Heaven back or Everybody Hates Chris on UPN. I’d love to keep doing amazing stuff that breaks through in terms of people talking about it. We just have to figure out a way of getting broader and doing it efficiently. And it’s not going to be easy.
What do you say to current CW showrunners, writers and producers who are questioning what the future of their shows are under Nexstar?
I’m looking forward to meeting or getting back together and talking about it all. I just don’t know the answers yet but I’m looking forward to digging in and figuring it all out. It’s still a huge platform and it’s one of five. We’re going to have to be contrarian and think differently. But it should not get in the way of ambition.
The CW’s scripted roster was gutted in May in anticipation of the sale to Nexstar and since then, a few other shows have announced final seasons. How much of the current roster are you expecting to return for 2023-24?
We have to see how they perform and we have to analyze everything on its merits, what its costs are and how it’s delivering. I don’t know enough yet. I have to dig into the numbers and budgets. If something is making sense, bringing in a lot of audience and is profitable, of course you’re going to keep doing it. And if it’s not, then we’ve really got to re-think it. Why don’t some of these shows on The CW get more than 1 million viewers? I need to find that answer out. It’s the right question to ask.
At the same time, many have pre-existing deals — All American and even its spinoff — are sold to Netflix. That money is going to Warner Bros. at a time when All American is The CW’s most-watched shows and Nexstar doesn’t own it …
All American is a great example because it’s so big. But In the Dark and Dynasty are big on Netflix. There are “smaller,” less high-profile CW shows that do great in streaming. So we know that the broadcast platform is a great one to get people to watch content and hear about it and want to check it out but we just have to do a lot better at monetizing it across more platforms and making sure it works for the stations and seeing how else we can monetize it so that these shows can be profitable.
What ideas do you have to do that?
We’ll talk in a month.
There’s been chatter that diverse programming — specifically pertaining to the LGBTQ community — isn’t something Nexstar is interested in doing. True?
I’ve certainly met with a lot of people over there and no one has said anything remotely close to that. One of the things I’m most proud of in my career is that I’ve championed underrepresented voices. Fifteen years ago, we had a trans character on Degrassi — the only recurring trans character in all of TV. We got a Peabody and an Emmy nomination. One Day at a Time had an Latinx family on TV and I got CBS to put that on broadcast and Schitt’s Creek is a historically significant LGBTQ story … . That type of storytelling and championing those voices has historically been important to me and I wouldn’t have taken the job if something was so black and white. Nobody has ever said anything like that to me.
The CW’s median age is 58 and Nexstar, we’ve heard, wants broad programming. Considering this is the time of year when broadcast execs would be buying scripts, what sort of programming are you looking for and who is the target audience you’re programming for?
That’s job number one. That’s the process when you start a new business and need to reinvent or refresh it. You have to think about what you’re going to stand for, the audiences you’re going to want to connect with and the type of content — scripted or unscripted — that connects with them. That’s the immediate first job, to figure that out and answer that question which I can’t do right now but once we get a little more research and understanding and figure out the challenge ahead, I look forward to answering that.
Who are you buying from? Are there mandates for Warners and CBS Studios? Can you even afford to buy from other outside studios like Sony or Paramount or Disney? Blumhouse sounds more like a model for The CW under Nexstar.
Blumhouse is an amazing model to think about. I love one of his quotes, “The only reason Hollywood spends so much money on things is because it can. Not because it has to.” We are open to business from everybody and that’s an advantage instead of just having two places from which to shop from. We can go out to the market and it’s the best idea wins. So maybe that is the right message to the creative community: we have seven nights a week, two hours a night to fill and we want to break through in culture and we have to do it smartly and efficiently and we can buy from everyone, from a big studio to a small production company. One of my favorite shows at Pop was Florida Girls. We did with Lionsgate with a real scrappy model that was the right price and right basket of rights to do well with that show. It’s about being smart. Even though I haven’t started yet, I know Dennis and the team there have already been taking meetings from everywhere — all different studios, scripted and unscripted production companies. As they should.
Will you follow a traditional development model or is going straight to series something more likely we’ll see there?
I have to dig in and figure that out. Sometimes when you have lesser budgets, you go straight to series and take swings on things and try to be audacious. And some things you’ll really need to see. I don’t think we’ll stick to any rules. One of our advantages is that we’re nimble and can move quicker than others. If a certain project requires a pilot, you make a pilot. And if a certain project is the right price and team, we’ll just go do it. As a company, we’re not wed to anything except making shows that are profitable.
Is scripted comedy something to expect at The CW?
I would love nothing more. There’s a hole for it and a need for it. I can’t get enough of Ghosts on CBS and Reboot on Hulu. I do feel we need more comedy. In a recession and in difficult times, comedy has always won. It’s the hardest thing to do but we have to try.
Interview edited and condensed for clarity.
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