The CW is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination was archived. For older candidates, please check the archive.
Article milestones Date Process Result October 1, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted

This  level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Television: Arrowverse / Stations Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Television, a collaborative effort to develop and improve Wikipedia articles about television programs. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page where you can join the discussion. To improve this article, please refer to the style guidelines for the type of work.TelevisionWikipedia:WikiProject TelevisionTemplate:WikiProject Televisiontelevision Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by the Arrowverse task force (assessed as Low-importance). This article is supported by the Television stations task force (assessed as High-importance). United States: Television Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by American television task force (assessed as Mid-importance).

MOS:THEINST, for names of institutions, organizations, companies, etc:

The word the at the start of a name is uncapitalized, regardless of the institution's own usage (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

We should therefore write "the CW" in running prose, not "The CW". Popcornfud (talk) 00:32, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:THEINST definitely tells us not to capitalise. Moreover, sources in the article tell us that it is consistently used without "the" and WP:DEFINITE tells us not to use "the" in the article title. Cinderella157 (talk) 08:13, 1 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. The CW's name always starts with the word "The" in uppercase. Articles and sources regarding the network start with this form unless otherwise stated (for example, KRON-TV "[serves] as the San Francisco Bay Area's outlet for The CW Television Network" or "CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. announced a new 'fifth network' named The CW in 2006"). Changing to the word "the" in all lowercase in this article changes context (e.g. implying the network's operator's name has always been CW Network, LLC rather than The CW Network, LLC, or the network's only official shortened name is CW, with the word "the" added whenever needed). Error302UserFound (talk) 01:50, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's not consistently capitalized in reliable secondary sources (example). And that's moot anyway, because we have a policy in the manual of style that specifically says to ignore all that and use lowercase. Popcornfud (talk) 08:26, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Correct. I'm taking back my opposition, since the inconsistency was there from the start. Error302UserFound (talk) 17:35, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nice to hear you've come round... but I don't understand your latest edit. There's no reason network operators would not also fall under this policy. Popcornfud (talk) 18:38, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the mention of "The CW Network, LLC" on the first intro paragraph on the 10th of January 2024. Error302UserFound (talk) 17:22, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support – I've always found it really weird the "the" was capitalized. Are we also talking about moving The CW to CW (network) given it's related, as Cinderella157 pointed out? —Joeyconnick (talk) 18:57, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A move naturally follows from this discussion, though we probably don't need to put parentheses around network. It would be more natural without. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:17, 10 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

So CW Network? —Joeyconnick (talk) 05:41, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Cinderella157 (talk) 09:23, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not. The title should remain as "The CW" per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:NATURAL, WP:THE, etc. Whether to capitalize "the" in running text is a separate matter. As for the "CW Network" suggestion, (1) that is not the name of the network, and (2) [1]. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:22, 11 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

From yesterday:

We came to the conclusion that the logo needed a makeover, and the "The" is not readable. [...] We're not "The CW Sports". We're "CW Sports". We're not presenting "The CW Original", we’re presenting a "CW Original". But we are still very much "The CW". That's how people refer to us. That's how the press refers to us. Even if I tried to drop "The", it would be impossible because in the culture, we're always "The CW". It's not "The NBC" or "The ABC", so it kind of differentiates us.

– Chris Spadaccini, chief marketing officer of the CW

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Well said, Chris. InfiniteNexus (talk) 05:50, 14 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, adjectival forms of proper nouns that start with "the" drop the definite article. It's a "New York Times article", even though the paper is "The New York Times". oknazevad (talk) 18:41, 15 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I more support the network name being changed altogether, but as that is not the discussion in question, I have generally interpreted The CW as the common name, and "CW" if it is grammatically impossible to identify it otherwise (e.g., "this station is sister to CW affiliate WXXX-TV (channel 37) in Metropolis"). It does also not help that many affiliates of The CW will brand as "CW (channel number or city/region)", a naming and branding convention inherited directly from predecessor network The WB.

I noted on my below support for an article split to have the creation of History of The CW, not "History of the CW", for this reason. Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 06:47, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Support lowercasing "the" – And probably support a move to CW Network, too. Probably it could be moved without an RM, as I see no opposition. Dicklyon (talk) 18:51, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  There is opposition directly above your comment. This would violate multiple policies. InfiniteNexus (talk) 19:56, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Sorry, missed that – scanning for "Oppose" I only found the one who later wrote "taking back my opposition". Dicklyon (talk) 23:24, 18 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Lean toward lowercase. MOS:THETM, MOS:THEINST don't support this marketing over-capitalization, and the network recently dropped "The" from its branding anyway. Capitalized "The" clearly dominates in the entertainment press (which habitually bends over backward to "obey" trademark stylizations, mimic logos, and match branding style, to keep its industry advertisers happy; almost all the money made by these publications comes directly from content-industry advertisers, so they are not independent sources on such a question). Even so, some major industry publications buck this habit: The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly[2], Variety[3][4], Deadline, Screen Rant. Usage outside such publications varies; aside from mainstream news examples given by someone else above, see lower-case at Los Angeles Times[5], Detroit Free Press[6], WALB-TV News Atlanta, The Patriot-News[7], Elle, Slate, Gizmodo, Vulture. Fandom media varies, often capitalized but lowercase in some, e.g. Comic Book Resources, MuggleNet, and Dexerto, and mixed usage within the same article at the Batman News blog. All of the above are just from the first few pages of Google News results. Ultimately, this is simply a style choice, and ours is always to lower-case by default, unless uppercase for something is near-uniform. I'm skeptical this standard is met here, when even entertainment press are sometimes going with "the CW". But "The" is really common in the entertainment press; that being the vast majority of the available source material, this leads in the direction of the common-style fallacy, but this is arguably an edge case. For me, it comes down to this: the answer to the question "Is this pretty much always treated as requiring a leading capital-T like 'The Hague'?" is clearly "no", so we should not treat it as if the answer were "yes". Also, it's possible that no clear consensus might emerge right now, but a clearer one might later, after the press has had time to absorbe the dropping of "The" from the network's brand this month. PS: The general situation appears to be the same as with CW's predecessor network the WB, which was commonly but not consistently written as "The WB" in entertainment-industry-beholden media, and less "The"-capitalized the further from that industry the reportage got. Discussion like this also needs to happen with regard to that defunct network, which is presently being written as "The WB" at its own article but inconsistently as "the WB" or "The WB" in other articles here. PPS: I'm skeptical of a move to CW Network or CW (network), since the WP:COMMONNAME remains "the CW" (styled one way or another); it may satisfy WP:THE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:52, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  SMcCandlish, CW is a disambiguation page. CW Network or CW (network) deals with disambiguation. Do you have a better alternative. Is this page the primary target? Cinderella157 (talk) 23:13, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  CW (an ambiguous term) and CW Network (an incorrect name) are out of the question. CW (network) is acceptable, but not preferable per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NATURAL. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:19, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  The network did not change their name to "CW". They changed their logo to "CW". See the Variety article I linked above, as well as the quote from the CW's chief marketing officer that basically sums it up. "The CW" has always been and will always be the COMMONNAME, so WP:THE should be satisifed. InfiniteNexus (talk) 00:19, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Yeah, I was skeptical about the move idea. "The CW" as the article title seems fine, but using "on The CW" in Wikipedia's own voice to match their marketing style, when major players even in the entertainment press don't do this, seems extremely dubious to me.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:58, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, I think MOS:THECAPS and MOS:THEINST are pretty clear on the issue of whether to capitalize "the" mid-sentence. InfiniteNexus (talk) 01:17, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the conversation above it seems like there's a consensus to lowercase per MOS:THEINST. Are we OK to make the change now? Popcornfud (talk) 12:05, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No further comments so I've made the change. Popcornfud (talk) 14:40, 11 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What does "linear" mean? The word appears three times (including a section title) with no explanation or link. —Tamfang (talk) 06:04, 16 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the history section should be split into its own page. It has been brought up before with no movement, so I am SODOINGIT. I intend to nominate this article for GA but I believe that it would be a far more ataible task if the article were smaller. I am not yet creating a formal proposal I am mearly informing those intrested that I have begun a sand box found here. It is very bare bones just the standered history for now. But I intend to source it throughly and expand the lead. If anyone wishes to work on this with me feel free. Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 04:06, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also related I have nominated The CW to be made a vital article. See here to debate it. Questions? four Olifanofmrtennant (she/her) 04:13, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The history section isn't long enough to need a separate page. Sure, the history section may be excessively detailed, but the page overall isn't long enough to need any sections split. If there is WP:Consensus that the history section should be split, then I'd have no problem with it being splitted. Jackthewriterguy12 (talk) 19:32, 19 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]