BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Despite all the negotiations that went on for an eighth season of "Gilmore Girls," CW Entertainment President Dawn Ostroff said she has no regrets about bringing the show to a close at the end of seven seasons.

"The show had lost about 25 percent of its audience ... and I think that, at the end of the day, we just didn't want to see 'Gilmore Girls' go on for another season and see the ratings go down even further," she said. "And I think we just felt that a lot of the stories had been told, and it was just time to move on."

And she was tactful about the show's seventh season, when David Rosenthal took over as show-running executive producer from "Gilmore" creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. "I was happy that the show ended on the two women — on the girls — because I felt that's where the show started," Ostroff said. "And I was happy that that was the focus of how the show ended."

What went unsaid is that The CW has several potential hits coming on this fall — shows like "Gossip Girl," "Reaper" and "Aliens in America" — so trying to wring another season out of "Gilmore Girls" became less important to the network.

OSTROFF ISN'T MAKING any apologies for canceling "Veronica Mars," either. And she has absolutely no reason to.

"I feel that we gave 'Veronica Mars' every chance. And as many of you here know, there was no stronger champion of that show than me," she said. "We gave it a better time slot to follow up every single year that it was on the air.

"And eventually, we just had to say — how much longer do we go on without the show really catching on? ... We really tried every single year to figure out how we can bring more viewers in. We just weren't able to crack it."

SHE'S ALSO NOT apologizing for the programming critics love to scorn — professional wrestling. "You know, 'WWE Smackdown!' is still No. 1 with men 18-34. So given that we are the network trying to appeal to that demographic, it fits in," Ostroff said.

ON THE OTHER HAND perhaps Ostroff ought to apologize for the awful scheduling that quickly killed any chance "Hidden Palms" had to succeed. And her explanation for what happened with that show was, well, less than believable. "We had ordered it as eight episodes, and we really saw it as probably a miniseries — a serialized miniseries of eight episodes."

Uh-huh.

"EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS" is, of course, based on the life of comic Chris Rock. And Rock will appear on the show for the first time — he'll play the school guidance counselor in the third-season premiere in September.

SOME PEOPLE JUST CAN'T let some things go. Like the reporter who hasn't quite noticed that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" are long gone and aren't coming back.

"This was a question every year at The WB for a few years — any possibility of the Spike movie from Joss Whedon?" she asked. (She, of course, was the one who kept asking the question.)

And the answer remains the same.

"I would never say never," Ostroff said. "Something could come up that just feels so right for us. But we have not had any conversations with Joss about the Spike movie, although we would love to be in business with Joss in any way."

Which is a long way of saying, "No."

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