CW Executive Rick Haskins Talks ‘Vixen,’ Their New Digital-Only Extension Of The DC Comics Universe

The CW, which was already three shows deep into the DC Comics universe with Arrow, The Flash and a new show early next year called DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, added an animated series called Vixen to the mix last week. The series of six animated shorts will run weekly on The CW’s original-programming site, CW Seed.

Vixen is an original story that takes place in the world of Arrow and The Flash. Some of the locations will look familiar to viewers of those shows — albeit in an animated form — and the the actors who play The Flash (Grant Gustin) and Green Arrow (Stephen Amell) will voice the animated versions of characters. Vixen, a female superhero with mystical powers voiced by Megalyn Echikunwoke, has been in the DC Comics universe in various forms since 1981.

Rick Haskins, one of the executives who developed Vixen for CW Seed, sat down with Decider recently to talk about CW Seed’s evolution since its launch in 2013, why he thinks the animated series will be a good thing for Arrow and The Flash, and whether The CW has reached a critical mass of superhero shows yet.

DECIDER: Your title at The CW is executive vice president for marketing and digital programs. Do you have the same role for the network that you do for the web site and apps?

RICK HASKINS: For the network, I oversee marketing, digital and social. For CW Seed, I oversee everything — programming, marketing, scheduling, platform development, apps. For CW Seed, I’m more of a general manager.

Is that more of an accident of how your responsibilities have evolved over the last several years, or is it an effort by the network to coordinate what’s going on TV with what’s going online?

The latter. If you look at CW Seed and what we’re trying to accomplish, it’s part and parcel with the CW brand with more of a focus on comedy. We have 10 hours of broadcast a week with a focus on dramas, and on CW seed we focus on comedy and try and infuse the network into our shows. Vixen is based on a DC character and also stars Flash and Arrow, and The Flash and Arrow are two of our biggest stars on air.

For a show like The Flash, what percentage of the shows total viewers would you say mostly watch the show when it airs vs. some other way?

About 77 percent of our viewership is time-delayed, which is VOD, DVR and digital. The CW is the most time-delayed network of any broadcast network. That’s based on some TV research that came out last week.

How do you think that will change in the next two, three, four years?

I think we knew that this is where we were headed, but we didn’t know how fast. I think it’s going to escalate faster than it has the last five years.

The CW calls CW Seed a “digital-only studio.” What does that mean, exactly?

We’re an over-the-top platform, and the shows are on the CW Seed only.

Is CW Seed — the website, the apps and whatever else — supposed to make money, or is it mostly there for you to experiment with technology and support your broadcast shows?

It’s an ad-based service and money is definitely important, but we do look at it as an incubator. We have three main goals for seed. No. 1 is to seek out and find new talent. Three years ago, we did an animated series called Very Mallory, and the star of the show was Rachel Bloom, who will star in a show we’re launching October 12 called Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. No. 2 is to find new business opportunities — short-form as opposed to long-form and the library of Whose Line Is It Anyway vs. new show on The CW. No. 3 is to experiment with new technology. A great example of that is three years ago, we rolled out a digital video screen, tested it, vetted it and then moved it over to CWTV.com.

Are you using the same ad model for everything on CW Seed or a combination of sponsors and inserted spots?

We’re doing all of that. Sometimes you’ll see a pre-roll ad and that’s it. Other times, if the content is 10 minutes or longer, you’ll see a pre-roll with an ad break.

How will Vixen work?

For Vixen, the first episode will be commercial-free. My experience in my long and boring career is that there’s two words that work magic in marketing — “free” and “new.” To be able to offer a new show for free is something great that doesn’t happen very often. From there on, we’ll attach advertising to it.

Will Vixen be sponsored by a single advertiser?

We are in negotiation with a potential partner, so that’s a possibility.

Will Vixen be one episode a week for six weeks?

Yes. Not only is Vixen a great opportunity to promote CW Seed, but it’s a great way for us to push into the launches of The Flash and Arrow. The last episode of Vixen on CW Seed will be the week before The Flash and Arrow premiere on air.

Will Vixen tie into the stories on the upcoming episodes of Arrow and The Flash, or is it more of a standalone story?

Yes and no. There are characters from Arrow and Flash in Vixen, but it won’t change what’s happening on those shows.

But it will be canon to those shows.

Yes, absolutely. They all reside in the same DC world. We had a picture on Facebook of the animated version of STAR Labs from Flash, and it has had a reach of 200,000 users.

Do you have a premiere date for DC’s Legends of Tomorrow yet?

Not yet, but it will be a midseason launch. We’re still trying to figure that out. We have traditionally launched midseason shows in January and March.

Will Legends be integrated into Flash and Arrow to the degree that Flash and Arrow are integrated?

I don’t want to spoil it, but if you look at past Flash and Arrow episodes, a lot of characters from Legends of Tomorrow have been in a lot of episodes of those two shows.

Are you concerned at all that having so much overlapping mythology will either be too much for viewers to keep up with or would be a barrier for entry for new viewers?

I think it’s just the opposite. We have three separate platforms, and what we’ve seen so far is a huge synergy. When we did the crossover last December from Flash to Arrow and Arrow to Flash, it was the highest-rated Arrow to date.

I watch The Flash, but I don’t watch Arrow, and I don’t feel like I miss anything. I get the impression that there are things happening that I don’t know about, but it doesn’t seem to impair understanding what’s happening on The Flash.

And I think it will continue to be that way. If you are following all three, you’ll know exactly what’s going on. If you don’t follow all three, you’ll still have an incredibly satisfying experience on the shows you watch.

Do you think future streaming content will be more shows that are tied to your existing brands or more original concepts?

It’s going to be a combination. We want to make sure a new show is right for the audience. Our digital average age is 22 years old, and the average age on broadcast is 38 years old. The original shows on Seed are reflective of that age difference.

Are you concerned at all that the superhero genre is a bubble, or has it been going strong for a long enough period to be a stable genre?

I’m worried about everything. I look at TV and see how many medical shows are on and how many lawyer shows are on at any one time, and they seem to thrive. There are a heck of a lot more medical and legal dramas than superhero shows.

Is Vixen amenable to a second season or a similar show with the same art direction?

Incredibly amenable. I think we’ve got the formula down and the synergy between on-air and original. If it performs as well as we think it will, I think it’s fair to say you would see a Season 2 of Vixen.

What kind of metrics would be doing well?

Numbers are important, but it’s also a function of how it drives people to Flash and Arrow. We’re doing exclusive Flash and Arrow promos that can only be seen when you go to Vixen. If that drives people back to the shows, that’s a success.

Did you go looking for a streaming companion series for those those shows, or did Vixen find you somehow?

I had the idea of doing a DC animated comic on Seed. We went to DC Comics, they liked the idea, they recommended Vixen, and we instantly fell in love with it. The idea was how to expand the universe in a Seed-like way to take advantage of the success we’re having on broadcast.

New episodes of Vixen are available to watch on CW Seed every Tuesday, and you can also catch up with past episodes there, too.

Scott Porch is a contributing writer for Biographile and The Daily Beast. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.