{"id":503,"date":"2006-01-24T12:25:00","date_gmt":"2006-01-24T20:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=503"},"modified":"2006-01-24T12:25:00","modified_gmt":"2006-01-24T20:25:00","slug":"shades-of-dumont","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=503","title":{"rendered":"Shades of Dumont"},"content":{"rendered":"

rialtus<\/a> has already commented on this<\/a>, but I must add my 2c. Today, a stunning announcement was made by CBS<\/a>, Warner Brothers<\/a>, and Tribune Corporation<\/a> announced the merger of The WB Network<\/a> and UPN<\/a> to form the CW Network. Both UPN and The WB will cease operations and go off the air in September, when the CW premieres. The CW will program 13 primetime hours across six nights as well as a Kids WB block on Saturdays and two hours of syndicated programming in the weekday afternoons, essentially mirroring The WB model. The network will be 50\/50 owned between Time-Warner (Warner Brothers) and CBS.<\/p>\n

The stations will primarily be Tribune and CBS-owned UPN stations. The 16 Tribune affiliated stations will include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Houston, Denver, St. Louis, Portland, Indianapolis, San Diego, Hartford, and Albany. The 12 CBS Station Group television markets will include San Francisco, Detroit, Tampa, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, West Palm Beach, Norfolk, Oklahoma City and Providence. What about those cities with both Tribune and CBS-owned UPN stations? There were seven such markets, with Tribune winning in Dallas, Miami, Boston and New Orleans, while CBS will own the affiliates in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Seattle. Together, these top two station groups cover the top 13 television markets, 20 of the top 25 television markets and have a total coverage area of more than 48% of the country. What about other stations that carried the WB or UPN? Some (especially in markets where they were the only station) will go with CW. The fate of other stations, like UPN affiliate and News Corp. owned WWOR-TV in New York or KCOP-TV in Los Angeles, is up in the air–that is up to News Corp., whose affiliation agreements are up at the end of August. The full distribution of the new network is expected to exceed 95% of the country. <\/p>\n

Dawn Ostroff, currently President of UPN, will become President of Entertainment and John Maatta, currently Chief Operating Officer of The WB, will become Chief Operating Officer of The CW.<\/p>\n

The programming will be a mix of the two networks. The new network will broadcast such UPN shows as “Everybody Hates Chris<\/i>“, “America’s Next Top Model<\/i>” and “Veronica Mars<\/i>,” as well as WB programs “Gilmore Girls<\/i>“, “Beauty and the Geek<\/i>” and “Smallville<\/i>.” In addition, World Wrestling Entertainment’s “Smackdown<\/i>,” which has been a mainstay at UPN, is expected to play a role in the schedule. Of course, I’m sure my daughter is concerned about the fate of her favorite, Charmed<\/i>.<\/p>\n

How did this come about? The idea was hatched when Barry Meyer (chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Entertainment) and Leslie Moonves (CBS Corp. president and CEO) saw each other at a dinner party. While the merger of UPN and The WB had been discussed in the past, there wasn’t a time before now when it made sense. It did now. What about the name? The C stands for CBS and the W stands for Warner Bros. According to Moonves, “We couldn’t call it the WC for obvious reasons.”<\/p>\n

Now, you know me. I can’t talk about anything without relating history. KTLA, the Tribune affiliate in Los Angeles, was originally owned by Gene Autry. It was the first broadcasting station in Los Angeles, and was known as a powerful independent station. KCOP, which used to be owned by Kris-Kraft, but is now owned by News Corp, was the UPN affiliate. A much weaker independent, before the days of UPN it was best known for rerunning sitcoms. Stations have identity, and this leaves KCOP in a quandry. KCAL (formerly KHJ), right after its purchase by Disney (it was since sold to CBS), made itself known for news… and it has continued in this fashion by having a prime-time news block. KCOP, after the CW debut, will be left as an independent without an identity. Will it go back to syndicated material (putting it on the par with KDOC 56), or will News Corp try to position it in some other fashion. The fallout will be interesting to watch.<\/p>\n

P.S.: Does anyone catch the reference in the title?<\/p>\n

[In addition to the press releases, sources for this entry include The Hollywood Reporter<\/a>, The Los Angeles Times<\/a>, and CNN<\/a>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

rialtus has already commented on this, but I must add my 2c. Today, a stunning announcement was made by CBS, Warner Brothers, and Tribune Corporation announced the merger of The WB Network and UPN to form the CW Network. Both UPN and The WB will cease operations and go off the air in September, when Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television","category-lj-xfer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}