TV station owner Nexstar acquires a controlling stake in CW Network

Daniel Ezra as Spencer and Samantha Logan as Olivia, stars of the CW series “All-American.” Nexstar Media Group, the country’s largest TV station owner, has acquired a controlling stake in the CW Network from its co-owners Paramount Global and Warner Bros. First-run episodes of CW’s high school football soap “All-American” typically drew under 1 million viewers on the network. In a statement, Nexstar said it plans to improve “the CW ratings, revenue, and profitability, by prioritizing programming for the network’s broadcast audience.” Lee Ann Gliha, chief financial officer for Nexstar, said on a conference call Monday that the company believes it can bring the CW to profitability by 2025. Over time, the CW evolved into a youth-oriented genre network, drawing heavily on established franchises from DC Comics, with series such as “Arrow,” “The Flash,” “Smallville” and “DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.” It also adapted other youth-oriented properties such as the Nancy Drew mystery books and Archie Comics, which generated “Riverdale.” Nexstar already has a national cable TV platform in NewsNation, launched in 2020 as a competitor to CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.