| Central Park West | |
|---|---|
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| Also known as | CPW |
| Genre | Soap opera |
| Created by | Darren Star |
| Written by |
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| Starring | |
| Theme music composer | Tim Truman (season 1) Michael Gore (season 2) |
| Composer | Tim Truman |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 21 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Darren Star |
| Producer | Judith Stevens |
| Cinematography | Geoffrey Erb |
| Editors |
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| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | September 13, 1995 – June 28, 1996 |
| Infobox instructions (only shown in preview) | |
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. Mariel Hemingway, Mädchen Amick, and Kylie Travis 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. Australian singer and actress Kylie Minogue was offered a lead role, but declined.
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 Raquel 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).