Pass It On: The CW Picks Up Gossip Girl

Young-Targeted Drama Gets OK for Full Season

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/9/2007 4:25:00 PM

The CW said it picked up Gossip Girl for a full season, calling it the fall's first network pickup.

Gossip Girl is the young-targeted drama based on a series of novels of the same name.

The network cited the show's Wednesday 9 p.m. performance with female and young demos, basing it on Nielsen Media Research live-plus-seven-day ratings that take into account time-shifted digital-video-recorder viewing.

The CW also cited iTunes downloads as helping to make the case for a full season, saying that it were looking for more ratings growth. The show debuted Sept. 19 at a 1.7/6 in the 18-49 demo.

The network said that it saw major ratings bumps in key demos when the DVR viewing was added in--so far only numbers for the premiere episode were available. For example, the rating in the women 18-34 demo was up 21%, from a 2.8 rating without time-shifted viewing to a 3.4 with it. 

CW said that the show is also among the top five downloaded shows on iTunes.

“People everywhere are talking about Gossip Girl, and we believe this show will continue to build audience as it builds buzz,” The CW president Dawn Ostroff said. “Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage have created an incredibly heightened-reality world that viewers are locking into while advertisers, affiliates and press have also embraced the show. The series has earned its early pickup and we look forward to a long run on The CW.”