CW's president Dawn Ostroff recognizes the network has plenty of obstacles to overcome after passing on WWE Smackdown in favor of more programming aimed at the female demographic. Since Smackdown moved to MyNetworkTV one month ago, those challenges have seemingly increased for CW.

"We knew going in there were hurdles to climb," Ostroff told AdWeek.com. "And we passed on wrestling because it just did not fit in our future plans."

AdWeek reports that overall viewership has declined from 2.9 million to 2.6 million since Smackdown's departure, but female viewership is up 7 percent among females 18-49. However, popular franchise shows, such as "America's Next Top Model" are aging and CW is struggling to find new, fresh programming.

One of the keys, though, will be "fixing" the Friday night block of programming that CW hoped they could fill after Smackdown left.

Caldwell's Analysis: CW appears to have a long-term plan in place, if you listen to president Dawn Ostroff. However, several of their top franchise programs are losing viewers or potentially will be lost by the network due to impending contract negotiations. CW is putting up a good front about the decision to drop Smackdown, but the consensus at this point is that it was a poor decision. That opinion could change over time, but CW losing viewers and struggling to retain franchise shows are not good signs.

Smackdown was merely a two-hour block of programming on Friday nights that helped bolster the prestige of the network, but didn't interfere with the show's regular flow of programming Monday - Thursday. CW wanted the flow to expand to Friday, which is why they dropped Smackdown, but they might discover the value of what they had in a major WWE franchise if they can't "fix" programming issues in the long-term.

Link: AdWeek.com report.

RELATED STORY at PWTorch.com: KELLER'S 10/31 WWE Smackdown Report.

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