CW looking to spin off 'Gossip Girl'

[Brian Damage]

NEW YORK -- The CW confirmed Thursday that it's looking at ways to spin off its hit "Gossip Girl" for next season.

CW entertainment president Dawn Ostroff told The Hollywood Reporter that the network is in discussions with the producers of the WBTV/Alloy-produced show as to how a new series could be done. But Ostroff said that nothing has been finalized and there's no imminent announcement.

"Nothing really tangible yet, but we're talking about it," Ostroff said after her speech at the WWD Style + Media conference in Manhattan. The network is in constant contact with executive producers Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, whom Ostroff praised.

"If it's the right idea, we'd all embrace it and be enthusiastic," Ostroff said. "But nobody more than Josh and Stephanie want to make sure there's the right idea that they can wrap their arms around and really be excited about."

Meanwhile, Ostroff said it's still to be decided what would happen with the Sunday primetime block after the removal of the Media Rights Capital programming.

"We did better this past week than we did with the MRC programming," Ostroff said. "We're programming a movie. Obviously it's only a week later, but we're going to look at Sunday night."

The movies are going to stay on the schedule for the time being.

"We're going to look at what the options are," she said. "It's a very competitive night."

Ostroff said the network was doing as much as it could early in advance of a possible SAG strike. The CW has picked up for a pilot order "Light Years" and is going to shoot the pilot right away, she said. Some other scripts are coming in early, but much depends on the development process.

"We'll do as much as we can as early as we can," Ostroff said, "but we're all holding out hope that there won't be a strike."

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...8c36c3d2be9391