The season premiere of Gossip Girl – the incredibly popular CW program that the current cover of New York Magazine calls the “Greatest. Show. Ever.” — debuted this week to slightly lower numbers than its previous season, with 2.44 million viewers as opposed to 2.5 million. It’s significant because of the CBS and Time Warner-owned network’s seriously flawed strategy to increase viewership, which was to stop posting new episodes of the show on the web.

I suppose it seems like a logical move in some twisted business sense: everyone loves our show, now there’s only one place to see our show (legally), so our numbers should increase. But making a show less available — in addition to taking something away that was previously offered — could really only have one outcome.

The Toad Stool makes an excellent suggestion on the subject — rather than limiting the show’s reach, why not use the medium where it gained its popularity to boost its numbers, via social networks and other promotions?

I’ve never seen the program, but it seems like an even more absurd move from The CW considering the show’s premise, which centers on a gossip blogger and a bunch of rich kids in New York (with such entitled surnames as Archibald, Waldorf, and van der Woodsen).