The "Arrowverse" is Dying, But Why?

 On some clickbait site I saw an article saying the CW superhero series The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, and Batwoman are hemorrhaging viewership even as The Flash launches another big crossover, Armageddon.  Trolls were of course quick to say that it's because they're too "woke" and all the usual crap.  And maybe some of it is that trolls and incels aren't watching anymore.  But there are probably some other reasons.

1.  AGE.  The "Arrowverse" started with Arrow about 10 years ago.  That was only a couple of years after the MCU debuted.  In that time the flagship show has changed from Arrow to The Flash and that has been on for 8 seasons.  It's hard for most shows that aren't The Simpsons, Family Guy, Law & Order SVU, or South Park to stay on that long; even the CW's longest-running scripted show Supernatural finally called it quits after like 15 years.  Besides Arrow, Supergirl recently folded and Black Lightning ended earlier in the year--or last year, whatever.  The Superman & Lois show was a hit but it's not back until next year.  And also The Flash has lost some of its cast like Cisco and the guy who played Ed on Ed and probably some others, which is usually a problem for shows in decline.

2.  UNDERCUTTING:  DC undercut itself by rolling out new original series on DC Universe HBO Max like Titans and Doom Patrol.  Stargirl and Swamp Thing were also made originally for that but wound up on CW and are not part of the "Arrowverse."  The thing about those shows is they were made with much better production values, slightly bigger name actors, and more adult storylines.  By comparison the "Arrowverse" looks like cosplay junk some fans threw together in their backyard.  Some people might then think, "Why have hot dogs when I can have steak?"  Especially when you put them side-by-side on the same channel.

3.  PEAK CROSSOVER:  From the start the "Arrowverse" featured crossovers.  Barry Allen first appeared on Arrow, after all.  And characters from the two shows would periodically show up on the other one.  Legends of Tomorrow was mostly made from characters in those other two shows.  And then the Flash showed up on an episode of Supergirl in the first season.  Eventually the crossovers got bigger and then they shot their wad with the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" event that put together all their shows and even featured actors from previous series and movies like Burt Ward, Robert Wuhl, Ezra Miller's Flash, Kevin Conroy playing Bruce Wayne in live action, and Brandon Routh reprising his role as Superman.  The problem then is:  what do you do for an encore?  You pretty much reached peak crossover by doing a weak version of the biggest crossover event in DC Comics history.  It really shouldn't be a surprise that some viewers decided the universe had gone as far as it could and there was really nowhere to go but down and starting tuning out.

4.  PEAK CROSSOVER PT 2:  Another extension of crossover fatigue is that they didn't really take advantage of it much.  At the end of the "Crisis" series they set up a potential Justice League, but from what I've heard from probably the same clickbait site, they hadn't really done much with the concept.  Probably for real life monetary reasons they never put together a JLA show or anything like that.  And Covid didn't help either.

5.  SCANDAL:  They say any publicity is good publicity, but maybe not in this case.  The Batwoman/Ruby Rose feud probably hasn't really helped in terms of publicity.  Those who side with Rose are probably not going to be big CW boosters.

6.  COMPETITION:  Shortly after Arrow premiered, Marvel introduced its own shows like Agents of SHIELD, Cloak and Dagger, and Legion.  On Netflix it also added its own mini-universe of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, and Punisher.  Disney+ eliminated the latter shows, but even then, none of the Marvel shows were really "canon" in that none of it was part of the precious, precious MCU.  I mean most of them were, but not really; nothing on those shows ever had any impact on what happened in the movies.  But now Disney+ started introducing actual canon MCU shows like WandaVision, Captain America & the Falcon, Loki, and Hawkeye, which takes competition with the "Arrowverse" up a notch.  Sure one is over-the-air and one is streaming, but people still only have so much time to watch TV.  Thus when people are watching Disney+ they generally can't be watching the CW.  Sure they can DVR stuff or whatever, but there probably is a limit to how many superhero shows average people can watch.

There's probably other reasons we could come up with.  What do you think?  Do you watch the "Arrowverse?"

(PS:  I lobbied to change it from "Arrowverse" to "CWverse" since Arrow was gone, but of course no one listens to me.)