In yet another strong show of faith in The Vampire Diaries, the CW officially changed its schedule so that repeats of the freshman drama will now air Wednesdays at 9pm following America's Next Top Model.  After the quick cancellation of The Beautiful Life, that spot featured repeats of Melrose Place.

The CW is clearly putting all of its chips on The Vampire Diaries.  The network already picked it up for a full season, and now the addition of repeats should increase that audience even more.

The move was most likely prompted by seeing how well a Vampire Diaries repeat did last Thursday.  The rerun of episode 2 earned 2.3 million viewers, better than new episodes of Gossip Girl and Melrose Place from the same week.

The Beautiful Life and Melrose Place reruns typically scored less than 1.5 or even 1 million viewers, a shame since the lead-in, ANTM, is the second most watched show on the CW.  These numbers should increase dramatically this week as episodes of The Vampire Diaries are watched by more than twice as many people as Melrose Place.

The Vampire Diaries reruns will air for three weeks before getting bumped for the two-hour America's Next Top Model finale on November 18.  New episodes of The Vampire Diaries continue to air at 8pm on Thursdays.



-John Kubicek, BuddyTV Senior Writer
(Image courtesy of the CW)