The Frog

It could be a coincidence, but the timing seems related to Scripps separating from the network.

B&C notes that in each market The CW is replacing a Scripps network.

Five More Nexstar Stations Becoming CW Affiliates

The CW Network Announces New Affiliates In Tucson, Arizona, Santa Barbara, California, And Corpus Christi, Texas

There's unconfirmed reports (or Adell leaked this) that a reverse comp dispute was behind the CW-Scripps breakup. Lol.

CW Sets Broadcast Crews, Adds Live Studio Show For ACC & PAC-12 Football

The list of stations preempting LIV Golf is getting smaller. Erie, PA was removed from the list. Nexstar/Mission has WJET and WFXP in the market, the latter of which was airing it on their Antenna TV subchannel. Lilly Broadcasting's WSEE-DT2 is the current CW affiliate and is presumably clearing it.

There are some potential scheduling conflicts with Xfinity races. Who gets bumped to NewsNation?

Nexstar Stations In Chicago, Norfolk, Lafayette, La., To Become CW Affils

Scripps is looking to sell Bounce TV.

The Hill Sunday with Chris Stirewalt will begin airing on CW affiliates this Sunday.

The CW is nearing a deal with the remnants of the Pac-12.

More affiliation changes are coming.

The CW is planning a Sunday morning political talk show with The Hill.

The CW Spells Out Quest to Be Considered a Major Network Alongside the ‘Big 4’

The graphics have been tweaked.

Some of Tegna's CW affiliates that refused to air LIV Golf (KCWI, KSKN, WLMT) will now clear it for the 2024 season. Nexstar/CW is also in talks for IndyCar rights.

According to this SBJ article, Nexstar purchased Paramount's 12.5% stake late last year.

https://www.dallasnews.com/business/local-companies/2023/08/02/d-fws-highest-paid-ceo-perry-sook-ushers-nexstar-into-new-era-with-sports-cable-news/

...has closed multi-year deals with major broadcast groups including Nexstar, Sunbeam, Cox Media, Weigel, and Mission Broadcasting in well over a 100 U.S broadcast markets, including all of the top 10. Sounds like it will air primarily on CW stations.

The CW Unveils New Branding Look, Dropping the ‘The’ and Embracing a ‘Hot Sauce’ Color Palette (EXCLUSIVE)

1.1 million viewers.

Ratings for the GOP debate are in. 1.6 million on NewsNation. 2.5 million on The CW.

I did some exploring on this, and sure enough Fox treated Smackdown as a sports property (they even put them in the Fox Sports intro!). That changed this summer when Fox recategorized them as an entertainment show. As far as Raw and NXT goes, NBCU has always classified them as entertainment programming. We'll have to wait and see if The CW decides to air NXT under their CW Sports banner. As for AEW, it appears that they were also reclassified from sports to entertainment when Discovery took over WarnerMedia.