• by Wayne Friedman , March 2, 2006

In wielding its strong market position, The CW has added five new stations to its network--deals negotiated on a more network-advantageous market-by-market, station-by-station basis.

In making these deals--the first deals since late January, when the network announced its launch and that CBS and Tribune stations had signed on--the CW had stations in each market compete to become a CW affiliate. It avoided TV station group deals that, in theory, could give TV station groups a price break.

Five stations that were added bring the CW's clearance level to 52 percent of the U.S. TV households. The new stations are: Winston Broadcasting's WB affiliate WBNX in Cleveland; Emmis Communication's WB affiliate WKCF in Orlando, Fla.; Cascade Broadcasting's WB outlet WBKI Louisville, Ky; Weigel Broadcasting's WB station WMWB in South Bend, Ind.; and Capitol Broadcasting's UPN affiliate WJZY in Charlotte, N.C.

The CW's target is getting to a 93 percent or 94 percent clearance level by September when it launches. The WB is currently at that level now; UPN is around 90 percent or 91 percent. The deals reflect the CW's strong position by combining the best assets of WB and UPN. CBS and Time Warner agreed to merge their respective UPN and WB networks in January. With CBS and Tribune stations, now The CW has stations in 25 of the top 30 markets.

Randy Bongarten, president of the TV division for Emmis Communications, said the deal is virtually the same as an WB affiliate. "We had a lot of success with the WB," he said. "We thought it was for the best. Certainly, both parties felt good about the arrangement."

The CW is considering five factors when determining whether a station could be a CW affiliate--similar conditions to what WB used in its affiliate deals. First, the CW wants to know what programming a station will be running in the prime access time slot--a key lead-in for any network's nightly prime-time schedule.

The CW also wants to know much money a station will spend on local promotion per year, whether a station will take on a unified on-air network look, and finally, how much money--called reverse compensation--it will pay to the CW to become an affiliate.

The key difference is in the last condition: In markets one through 15, WB affiliates paid a guaranteed yearly amount to the network. But in market 15 and below, reverse compensation was calculated on easier and mostly cheaper yearly performance.

Now, the CW is commanding all stations to pay a pre-determined fixed amount--which puts pressure on stations to maintain their local market share--perhaps spend more money on promotion. If a station's position in the market drops, they might still need to be pay a high reverse compensation fee.

The CW is giving stations three minutes of local advertising time an hour to sell in prime time and four minutes in daytime for its 3-5 p.m. programming block.