As everyone knows, The CW and its digital platform have via a deal made by parent companies Warner Bros. (now WarnerMedia) and CBS for the last eight years been tethered to Netflix, which streams past seasons of CW series. One result of that agreement has been that CWTV could stream only five episodes of its new and returning series at a time, each of them landing on the day after their broadcast run. As the seasons progressed and additional episodes aired on The CW, though, the “oldest” episode of the five on CWTV had to be jettisoned, sent into limbo until eight days after a given series’ season finale, at which time every episode from that season would migrate to Netflix.
The Netflix arrangement is still in place for all of the veteran series included on The CW’s year-round schedule, but as of this fall – when the new era of digital independence began – all new series that run on the linear network will no longer go to Netflix at the end of each season, but are instead slated to run on their parent companies’ owned streaming services. (HBO Max just announced they have the out of season rights to the next 10 new Warner-produced CW series.)
With this new deal in place, the in-season streaming strategy changes for The CW. Episodes of its new series will still be available the day after their television premieres for streaming exclusively on their free, ad-supported digital platform (and The CW app, which currently has more than 55 million downloads across virtually every platform, having gained 14 million in just the past year). What's different, though, is that as the season continues they will now “stack” on CWTV.com, meaning viewers who aren’t necessarily following them from the start on The CW will at any time be able to binge the entire season to date and then continue viewing at their own pace without having to wait months for them to turn up on Netflix.