Supergirl has been renewed for a second season — but will be moving from CBS to The CW, EW has learned.
Supergirl, which stars Melissa Benoist as the Girl of Steel, will now air on The CW, joining the other super series in producer Greg Berlanti’s universe,
Arrow,
The Flash, and DC’s
Legends of Tomorrow.
Since
Supergirl was first announced in development at CBS, both fans and industry insiders have questioned whether the major network famous for its crime dramas was the right fit for the show. Previously, CBS Entertainment chairman Nina Tassler defended the pickup, telling EW, “For our network right now, what we did respond to was the character’s humanity, the other characters in the show as well – the story trajectory and the character’s arc and growth. These are all things that made her just imminently relatable, and made the story exciting.”
The series debuted in October to 13 million viewers and a 3.1 in the 18-49 demographic, but subsequently dropped to around 6.11 million and a 1.3 by its season finale in the next-day ratings. Currently, including DVR playback, the show’s season has averaged around 9.8 million viewers and a 2.4 in the demo, ranking in the bottom half of CBS’ programming in total viewers and 8th in the demo. Still, if the show’s audience remained close to the same, the numbers would be a boom for The CW. The network’s highest rated show,
The Flash, has been averaging around 5.7 million viewers factoring in DVR.
Reports also have it that the series will move production from Los Angeles to Vancouver, where those other shows also film, but The CW would not confirm. The move could also bring more cross-over opportunities between Berlanti-verse brands, such as when
The Flashjoined
Supergirl earlier this year.
The show’s budget is likely to be impacted. The
Supergirl pilot cost a reported $14 million and the per-episode cost is reportedly around $3 million. As Berlanti
once told EW: “The other thing I would say was incredibly hard, was just trying to do something of this scope and size, and, quite truthfully, in Los Angeles. It’s an expensive city to shoot in. These things don’t come cheap, and we didn’t want to do it if we couldn’t give it the scope that it really deserves.”
That means
Supergirl 2.0 will likely be a more frugal production. Shooting in Vancouver instead of Los Angeles should alone bring some of the cost down, but it remains to be seen whether fans will be able to ascertain any production value difference on screen.
