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THR: You've been identified with young-adult soaps, but this year your pilots seem more closed-ended and procedural. Is the CW getting less soapy this year?

Dawn Ostroff, president of entertainment, the CW: We've been trying to find more franchise shows with a beginning, middle and end. Most are accustomed to watching shows now where the personal relationships continue on in every episode, whether it be a "CSI" or "Grey's Anatomy," any franchise show, and the cases have a beginning, middle and end.

THR: Sounds like the CW is becoming a bit more like CBS?

Ostroff: "HMS" is a more traditional show for us, which has its own twist that makes it right for the CW. It's set at Harvard Medical School, and the pilot's entry point is through first-year students. What makes it unique is that these people are learning about the profession but at Harvard, where you're at the most prestigious medical school, you're steeped in history but with cutting-edge medicine. It's going to be as much of a show-and-tell about medical science as the emotional cases of different patients and the emotional relationships between the characters themselves.

THR: Is there a lesson from the success of "The Vampire Diaries"?

Ostroff: Great writing, great casting, a topic that's in the zeitgeist and a known franchise is always what we look for. It's the perfect example of the kind of qualities we stress in every show we pick up.

THR: Is it too early to talk about a "Vampire" spinoff?

Ostroff: Too early. But hopefully in a few years.

THR: What about one of your other genre shows, "Smallville," will it stay on Fridays?

Ostroff: "Smallville" has had a great year creatively and moving to Friday nights; viewers have not only followed it but have endorsed the show creatively. I think it's too early too tell [where it will go], but it's been doing well on Fridays.

THR: Between the durability of "Smallville," "Supernatural" and the popularity of "Vampire Diaries," should the CW head in a more genre-driven direction?

Ostroff: What "Vampire Diaries" has done so well is that it's not just a genre show, it has romance and humor and friends that feel like family. There are so many elements that work on different levels. So although it is a genre or sci-fi show, it has a lot of other elements that make the show work for all of our audience. We picked up a show called "Be-Twixt," which is a genre show if you will, but it has many of the same elements.

THR: Action thrillers "La Femme Nikita" and "Be-Twixt" both have female leads, but given the subject matter, is the CW becoming more boy-friendly?

Ostroff: I think the CW is more boy-friendly than most people think. There are some really dynamic women at the core of those shows that will hopefully be interesting to men. I know more men who watch "Gossip Girl" than you can imagine.

THR: The soaps "Gossip Girl" and "90210" haven't held up as well. Is there anything that can be done to boost their numbers?

Ostroff: I wouldn't say they haven't done as well. You have to realize that you have a lot of people time-shifting our shows and watching in different ways. Mondays have been particularly tough this year — it has become more competitive. "90210" creatively is light years away from where it was last year. Sometimes that show is watched more on DVR than live. I think we're still feeling positive about our shows.

THR: OK, but is there anything that can be done to give them even better ratings next year?

Ostroff: We haven't gotten into the conversations with the producers about what next year's shows are going to be. But I do think as more and more people are migrating to their DVR and streaming shows, I think it's going to be harder and harder to envision our Nielsen numbers going up.

THR: What's the likelihood of "One Tree Hill" coming back?

Ostroff: We're encouraged. We think (creator) Mark Schwahn has done a great job with the show. The fans are the most loyal and dedicated I think I've ever seen. They have some 1.6 million fans on Facebook. Too early too tell, but creatively we feel the show is in a really good place.

THR: What about "Life Unexpected"?

Ostroff: That's really too early too tell.

THR: Looking at the number of drama pilots you have, is it fair to assume that there won't be slots for both "One Tree Hill" and "Life Unexpected"?

Ostroff: Too soon to say anything yet.

THR: Are you doing anything differently this summer to maintain viewership levels?

Ostroff: We're working on a lot of different reality projects, which we really don't talk about. There's a couple things we're looking at for fall and for summer. In fact, we just now picked up another pilot, "Nomads."

THR: Do you plan to stay on five nights or are there any plans to try and retake Sunday? Or get back into comedy?

Ostroff: Five nights is the plan. We're looking at our reality shows as having comedy. Our (hourlong) show "Wyoming," which Amy Sherman-Palladino wrote, has a lot of humor. So it's different ways of doing comedy.

THR: What about late-night? Everybody is diving into that game, so is that possible for the CW?

Ostroff: Nothing we've been exploring yet.

THR: I'm looking at the description for "Nomads" (a Ridley and Tony Scott-produced action hour) which was just released, and I have to circle back to the boy question. Moving forward, the CW does seem less girlie than in the past.

Ostroff: Our target audience is 18-34 women. There was white space out there where this is a demographic that was at least being spoken to from an advertisers' point of view and the competitive landscape. And women love to watch action-adventure franchise shows. "Nomads" is a show about two women at the core, and they're spies. It's like "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" empowered women. The intention was to get a broader scope of programming on the network so that not all of the shows we did were soap operas per se, but it wasn't geared toward trying to bring men in.

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