Programming
The CW Plus operates three separate feeds for the Eastern/Central, Mountain and Pacific Time Zones (the latter also acts as an hour-behind timeshift feed for the Alaska Time Zone with timeslot modifications for network daytime and certain syndicated weekend programs), and designs the master schedules of each feed so that The CW's broadcast affiliate feed aligns with the regional start time of most network programming; as such, the One Magnificent Morning educational block – which is designed to be tape-delayed – airs one hour early in some areas, compared to its preferred scheduling (including on affiliates in the Central and Alaska time zones). Formerly, The CW Daytime, which was also designed to be tape-delayed, had followed this scheduling as well until the block was discontinued on September 3, 2021, as a trade-off to the network's affiliates tied to its October 2 expansion of prime time programming to Saturdays.[23] Syndicated programs broadcast on The CW Plus during non-network programming hours as of include The Steve Wilkos Show, Karamo, Divorce Court, We the People with Judge Lauren Lake, Friends, Dish Nation, The Good Doctor, Chicago P.D., TMZ on TV / TMZ Live, and Maury.
Like the predecessor WB 100+ Station Group, The CW Plus utilizes a dual programming structure differing from the traditional American broadcast programming model used by CW-affiliated stations in all but a couple of the Nielsen-ranked "top 100" television markets. To fill dayparts on The CW Plus not reserved to the main network feed, The CW – asserting programming acquisition duties traditionally handled by the local affiliate operator – purchases cash- and barter-sold programs distributed for first-run and off-network syndication to occupy most daytime and evening timeslots throughout the week, syndicated feature film packages to occupy afternoon and late access timeslots on Saturdays and Sundays, and paid programming purchased through time-buys with direct response infomercial production firms and teleministries to occupy overnight and some early afternoon timeslots.[6] The network's handling of these duties, along with the master schedule composition of the CW Plus feed, relieves the local affiliate's operator from needing to acquire and budget for syndicated programming to fill timeslots not occupied by The CW's base network schedule. Individual CW Plus affiliate operators handle advertising sales for local commercials inserted into the corresponding feed during designated ad breaks within network and syndicated programs aired on the service.
Prior to the debut of the Litton Entertainment-produced One Magnificent Morning block on the network in October 2014, the remaining two hours of programming that fulfill FCC educational programming guidelines which were not covered by The CW's predecessor children's program blocks – Kids' WB, The CW4Kids/Toonzai and Vortexx – was also taken care of by The CW Plus. However even after the debut of One Magnificent Morning, The CW Plus continued to offer syndicated educational programs on Saturday early afternoons immediately after the conclusion of the block, resulting the feed airing a net surplus of seven hours of E/I programming each week (five hours provided by The CW, and two hours supplied by The CW Plus) that far exceeded the FCC’s minimum three-hour requirement. The feed’s supplementary E/I content was reduced to just one half-hour in September 2015 (consisting solely of Elizabeth Stanton's Great Big World) and was concurrently shifted to a Saturday late-night timeslot; the supplementary syndication E/I window was eliminated in September 2016, leaving the shows aired within the One Magnificent Morning block as the only educational programming offered by the feed (which later reduced its runtime to three hours since 2017).
Operators of local CW Plus affiliates (whether a parent broadcast station or cable franchisee) can substitute syndicated programs on the feed’s schedule with alternative programming if the local syndication rights to a particular program on the CW Plus master schedule are held by the parent station’s main channel (if it is not already affiliated with The CW Plus), by any additional subchannels offered by the parent station or by a competing station within the DMA. Optionally, CW Plus broadcast affiliates may offer programming from a multicast-originated network (such as MeTV, This TV or Antenna TV) on a part-time basis during the feed’s designated paid programming time, particularly if the network being sourced lacks an existing full-time affiliate within the DMA. (Monroe, Louisiana affiliate KCWL-LD – the only CW Plus affiliate to maintain a secondary affiliation with that service – has carried CW competitor MyNetworkTV in the subfeed’s late-night paid programming slot since 2017, as late-night slotting increasingly became a common fate for MyNetworkTV in the years since its 2009 conversion from a television network to a programming service.)
The CW Plus offers three designated "Live Local News Windows" – a weekday morning window from 7:00–8:00 a.m. in all time zones and half-hour evening windows scheduled, depending on the time zone, nightly at 10:00 (ET/PT) or 9:00 p.m. (CT/MT/AT) and weekend evenings at 6:00 (ET/PT) or 5:00 p.m. (CT/MT/AT) – as options for affiliates to air local newscasts (either produced by the parent station or a station co-managed with the local CW Plus outlet, or via a news share agreement with a competing network affiliate) at their discretion. Although The CW has never carried any national news programming of its own, The CW Plus had served as a national carrier of syndicated morning news/talk program The Daily Buzz, which aired on the feed from September 2006 until September 2014, eight months prior to the program's April 2015 cancellation. (The predecessor WB 100+ Station Group had originally acquired the national syndication rights for the program, which aired on that feed from September 2002 until its conversion into The CW Plus.[24][25])
