The cast of Gossip Girl has been chosen to lead off Entertainment Weekly’s Fall TV Preview in this week’s issue but only Ed Westwick and Leighton Meester have been chosen to appear on the magazine cover … interesting, no? Here is the coverphoto for this week’s issue of EW magazine along with a few photos from inside the mag and portions of the coverstory:

Why would [The CW] remake itself in the image of a show that ranked 150th in the ratings last season? Because while GG lacks numbers, it continues, incredibly, to be flush with buzz. The cast’s Neutrogena-fresh visages grace countless magazine covers, and trend-happy kids are spending their disposable incomes to get that GG look. ”What Gossip Girl is doing today is kind of like what Sex and the City did for the way women dress,” says Ed Bucciarelli, president and CEO of Henri Bendel in New York. ”People come in saying ‘We want the headband that Blair was wearing on last week’s show.”’ One teen, he adds, even requested a Collette Dinnigan cocktail dress — worn by Meester in May’s season finale — for her prom. For The CW, that kind of pop culture influence could be a lifesaver. Industry watchers are rumbling that if the two-year-old network doesn’t perform better this season, it could face extinction. Can a Girl-friendly schedule save The CW? If the network folds, will that mean the end of Gossip Girl? And, most important, can Serena (Blake Lively) and Dan (Penn Badgley) really make things work? With so many questions swirling around the show, we set out to separate truth from gossip.

Say what?!? After the jump, check out the 4 Rumors (Will GG get canceled due to low ratings? Is the Jenny Humphrey character getting her own spin-off show? Do Blake Lively and Leighton Meester hate each other? Is GG going to amp up the sex in season 2 to try and drum up ratings?) about Gossip Girl that Entertainment Weekly takes to task and offers answers to some of the most burning questions about the show …

RUMOR: OMG! Not enough people are watching Gossip Girl and it’s gonna be dunzo after this season.
REALITY: A world without Gossip Girl is about as unlikely as Blair Waldorf wearing body glitter … Most freshmen series would be facing the boot if they failed to average 2.5 million viewers in their first year … At The CW, the consensus is simple: This little Girl is special, with viewers that aren’t counted properly by Nielsen because they don’t simply sit down at 8 p.m. every Monday in front of the TV. As a result, the show’s audience is underreported … ”We just have to keep the show as good as possible so if something happens, it has a life of its own.” Execs at Alloy Entertainment, which owns the rights to the Gossip Girl books, have ”huge concern” about The CW’s future but are confident the show can outlive its network. ”It’s having cultural impact like nothing else,” says Les Morgenstein, Alloy Entertainment president. ”If The CW did go away, you’ve got to think it’ll find another home.” Most likely, that home would be on cable, where the ratings bar is lower.

RUMOR: This year Gossip Girl will be a smorgasbord of raunchy sex, male prostitution, and lots of rich people doing very bad things.
REALITY: Um…actually, that’s true.

If you want to read the spoilers about the proposed upcoming “rauchiness” in season 2 you can find them HERE.

Incidentally, it turns out that EW has printed 2 covers for this week’s Fall TV Preview issue … the other cover features GG co-stars and real-life lovers Blake Lively and Penn Badgley:

Meh. I like the Ed/Leighton cover better. AND I’m totally stoked on this new season of GG … I’m really looking forward to the raunchiness … the show is good and all but I’m really hungry for more. I love the style factor on the show has already been broughten … now I want the raunch. After all, isn’t that what good bad TV is all about?

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