Central Park West (TV series)

Central Park West
Also known as	''CPW''
Genre	Soap opera
Created by	Darren Star
Written by	Camille Marchetta Terri Minsky Darren Star David Stenn Adriana Trigiani
Directed by	Gwen Arner Allan Arkush James Frawley Alec Hirschfeld Victoria Hochberg Tim Hunter Victor Lobl Nancy Malone Don Scardino Lorraine Senna Tim Van Patten
Starring	Mädchen Amick Justin Lazard Ron Leibman John Barrowman Lauren Hutton Kylie Travis Tom Verica Melissa Errico Michael Michele Mariel Hemingway Raquel Welch
Theme music composer	Tim Truman (season 1) Michael Gore (season 2)
Composer(s)	Tim Truman
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	21
Production
Executive producer(s)	Darren Star
Producer(s)	Judith Stevens
Cinematography	Geoffrey Erb
Editor(s)	R.Q. Lovett Joanna C. Lovetti David Ray Cara Silverman
Running time	60 mins. (approx)
Production company(s)	Darren Star Productions CBS Entertainment Productions
Distributor	CBS Television Distribution
Release
Original network	CBS
Original release	September 13, 1995 – June 28, 1996

Central Park West (also known as CPW) is an American prime time television soap opera that ran from September 1995 to June 1996 on CBS. The series was created and executive produced by Darren Star. As the title suggests, CPW was set in New York, in the affluent Central Park West area of Manhattan. Actresses Mariel Hemingway, Lauren Hutton, and Raquel Welch portrayed three of the central characters on the show.

The program represented CBS's attempt to reestablish itself after a disastrous 1994-95 television season where the network lost a heavy amount of established affiliates due to affiliation switches related to Fox acquiring NFC football rights, and an attempt by the network to attract younger viewers. It was the network's most-promoted new show in many years with a promotional campaign exclusively produced to appeal to younger viewers, and attempted to recapture the network's past nighttime soap glory from the years of Dallas and Knots Landing.

The series was not successful and was removed from CBS' schedule in November 1995, returning some months later with new additions made to the cast (Hemingway left by this point, and Welch was brought in). The retooling was not enough to save the show, which was canceled in June 1996. The failure of the series returned the network quickly back to their traditional broadcasting focus and repairing relations between both the network's new affiliates and their older stations which were frustrated by the network's moves in programming rights and programming within the Laurence Tisch era, which would end shortly thereafter with Westinghouse's purchase of CBS, Inc. in 1995 (approval of CPW to be placed on the network's schedule came well before Westinghouse's purchase).

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