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SitcomsOnline.com 2009-10 Upfront Preview: The CW; ION and TV Land Start 'Whisperer' and 'Roseanne' Early

The CW is dropping Sundays this fall, so they will only program Mon-Fri. With only 10 hours a week of programming, space is limited. And to make things worse, they have 0 sitcom pilots in development, so all of their new series pick-ups will be dramas.
Here is the SitcomsOnline.com The CW 2009-10 preview:

New Series Already Picked-Up: None.
New Series We Think That Are Almost Good To Go: Melrose Place (drama), The Beautiful Life (drama), and Vampire Diaries (drama).
New Series Perhaps Picked-Up for Mid-Season: Body Politics (drama) and Gossip Girl: Lily (drama).

OUR FALL 2009 PREDICTION:

Mondays
8:00PM Gossip Girl
9:00PM Vampire Diaries (NEW!)

Tuesdays
8:00PM 90210
9:00PM Melrose Place (NEW!)

Wednesdays
8:00PM America's Next Top Model
9:00PM The Beautiful Life (NEW!)

Thursdays
8:00PM Smallville
9:00PM Supernatural

Fridays
8:00PM The Game OR One Tree Hill
9:00PM One Tree Hill OR Privileged

Comments: The CW needs help and they need to improve ratings. With zero comedy, they are not a balanced network and have similar types of shows. For Mondays, Gossip Girl will likely continue to be leading off Mondays and they can try new drama Vampire Diaries at 9pm, as One Tree Hill can help another night. This block needs to do more than 3 million. Tuesdays should have the classic remake with 90210 and now Melrose Place. Melrose needs to do much better than 90210, which hasn't done too well, especially this spring. Wednesday will of course have America's Next Top Model followed possibly by a drama that is focused on models called The Beautiful Life, a new series from Ashton Kutcher. That could be the fit The CW was looking for, instead of wasting the timeslot with repeats of 90210. Thursday is The CW's best night I think...with Smallville and Supernatural, nothing needs to change here. Fridays will have to change, though. They need to be more aggressive. The CW could redevelop sitcom The Game into a one-hour comedy, as they have mulled the idea. I think they should go for that and it would be a nice way to start off the night. At 9pm instead of the Top Model repeats, how about being more aggressive and airing One Tree Hill? I'm not sure if that goes well with The Game, but nothing on the schedule with The Game goes with it but Top Model. The CW is not likely to bring back Everybody Hates Chris for a fifth season. Look for that in syndication next fall with repeats on Nick at Nite and BET. Reaper is the only other on the bubble show with a shot, but I don't see it returning. It is said ABC Studios is shopping the series for first-run syndication, and perhaps it would air on CW stations on Sundays with new episodes, since affiliates are now going to program Sundays this fall. A long shot of happening, though. People keep saying Privileged has a shot...why? With those terrible numbers it had, it has no shot I think unless Fridays is an option instead of The Game. Which come to think of it, that makes sense and could go well with One Tree Hill.
For midseason, they should for sure pick-up The Body Politic. It sounds actually good and has a nice cast including Gabrielle Union, Tim Matheson, Jay Hernandez, and Brian Austin Green. It is said the Gossip Girl spinoff called Lily starring the gorgeous Brittany Snow is being passed, but I think they will need it come midseason, so they should order 6 episodes. If not, they will order another drama like Light Years to fill the void.
You can say goodbye to the following shows Stylista, Reaper, Privileged, Everybody Hates Chris, 13: Fear is Real, 4Real, Easy Money, In Harm's Way, Valentine.
The CW needs help for sure, I think they should start each weeknight with a proven show (Gossip Girl, 90210, Top Model, Smallville, The Game/One Tree Hill). It baffles me why they had no sitcoms in development. Too many dramas that are centered for female teenagers is too much.
Discuss your thoughts on our prediction and feel free to make suggestions of your own.

Remember, next Thursday (May 21) is the actual date when we will find out The CW's plans for the 2000-10 season. So, come on back next Thursday and we will let you know the details and you can see how much we were right (or wrong). Stay tuned on Saturday for our annual "weekend before upfronts rumbling."
And as a reminder, stay tuned next week for all the final schedules released by all the networks! We will put them up as soon as they are released by the networks, so this will be your home to see them first!


We have some schedule news! First, ION Television will launch Ghost Whisperer in June! It was slated to begin in the fall, but will start earlier than expected. The show will air Mondays at 8pm starting Monday, June 1, 2009. It will replace two Reba episodes. Reba will continue to air weeknights in the 7pm hour and at times in the 8pm hour Wed-Fri, depending on the movies. For fans of Ghost Whisperer, or if you want to watch the show for the first time, the first five episodes will air in June (June 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29). So this is an update to the ION Television June 2009 schedule we previously announced.
Ghost Whisperer will lead into two episodes of NCIS at 9 and 10pm on Monday nights.

Elsewhere, TV Land made a very last minute schedule change YESTERDAY that was in effect immediately! Some of you probably saw Roseanne airing from 9-10pm and 12-1am, airing between The Cougar. Roseanne was not set to launch on TV Land until June 5, so it started on May 13--three weeks earlier than planned. Roseanne will leave Nick at Nite effective immediately because of the change. It was only airing late nights on weekends anyway. Family Matters takes over the Roseanne slots on Nick at Nite. View the updated Nick at Nite May 2009 schedule.
Back to TV Land, we also told you before that a second Married...with Children marathon was set for Thursday, May 14 (tonight) from 10pm-1am, and now TV Land has made that a weekly thing. So look for The Bundys every Thursday night in TV Land PRIME. Also, starting tomorrow the 6pm weekday hour will now be The Beverly Hillbillies, replacing Hogan's Heroes and Green Acres, which are leaving a few weeks earlier than planned. In the 7pm hour will be The Andy Griffith Show, as that show will air 7-9pm now. Though on Mondays it will still air its 7pm-12am marathons. Roseanne will air Tues-Fri in the 9pm hour and 12-1:30am on most nights. On Fridays, Roseanne will air from 9pm-2:30am, which means the TV Land PRIME Movie is gone. Will it remain in June? That still remains to be seen.
On weekends, Roseanne is airing 1am-4am on Saturday nights and 1-3am on Sunday nights. Hogan's Heroes gets a half hour airing a week now, airing Sundays at 10am. The Cosby Show seems to be airing with Roseanne a lot, and gains the 11pm-1am slot on Saturday nights. And Three's Company moves from 1am-4am to 4am-6am on Saturday nights. Looks like 3rd Rock from the Sun is totally gone on this schedule!
View the FULL new schedule that is in place now! Couple of points, TV Land will be going "off the clock" starting tomorrow...so the timings of shows will be way off. Just giving you a heads up, if you're taping something. And we're not sure what this means for June, as we already announced a schedule for that. As of now, these new changes are through the end of May. We will update you on any updates to the TV Land June schedule as soon as we get it. Stay tuned!

Come on back tomorrow for news on a sitcom coming to Lifetime in June!