Los Angeles - The CW has decided to stop streaming free episodes of "Gossip Girl" from its website, in a test to see whether the popular streams were eating into the show's TV audience, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The network will leave the first 12 episodes of the season online -- which it says have drawn hundreds of thousands of streams -- but new episodes won't be joining them.

The new episodes will, however, continue to be placed for sale on Apple's iTunes Store.

"While the buzz on the show has remained strong, we decided to have it be that you can only get it on our airwaves," a CW spokesman told THR.

"We'll see if that at all impacts the numbers."

Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/24x00 (Hollywood Reporter)

http://www.cwtv.com