Gossip Girl Gets Reality TV Show

No, not really.

But it seems that would have been the only reason for the CW to launch its down-with-the-internet, all-TV stunt of last spring.

In April, just as TV writers were ponying up and returning to work after a 100-day strike, the CW announced that it would no longer stream episodes of its most popular series for free on cwtv.com—a pretty brainless move, considering the nature of Gossip Girl, a show named after a tech-savvy blogger, and also antithetical to its original roots, in which the 2007 pilot episode was actually available online before it made its small-screen debut.

But the network feared it was "cannibalizing" its TV ratings by making the eps available online, though it averaged around 2 million viewers per episode, watched largely by coveted 26-year-olds.

It seemed an unusual move, since part of the intrigue of Gossip Girl lay in the fact that its characters echoed its audience, and vice versa: Just as Dan, Blair, etc. checked their cellphones for updates on the scandalous lives of their schoolmates, real-life high-schoolers checked in with their iMacs to watch the same gossip unfold (i.e., the show) anytime they wanted. The accessability of it all was built-in advertising, in a way, and allowed for a larger audience that couldn't be shackled by air times: Namely, an audience in the same age group, with the same interests and tech capabilities as the characters.

Thankfully, the network has seen the error of its ways; it's lost the battle to withhold the show and will bring the Upper East Siders back where they belong—free on the internet—come autumn. Though the CW is being very hush-hush about it (they didn't even send out a generic press release), it seems that their little plan must have backfired, as they will return to their original system the day after Season 2 premieres on September 1. Free Gossip! Whenever you want it! The way life should be.

There is, of course, an easy solution that would keep our beloved shows from being jerked around and imprisoned in airwaves: Disestablish the antiquated, dated, and irrelevant Neilsen ratings!

You know you don't love them.