What Killed UPN and The WB TV Networks?

[factsoflife]

Originally Posted by mets82

I personally think that the WB was a good network. I thought it was always better than UPN, IMO. I mean besides Smackdown, where's the UPN show that was watercooler talk? I couldnt think of one. On the WB you at least had Buffy and Dawson's Creek.

Well, I think initially it was "Star Trek: Voyager", which at the time was a significant hit. After that their biggest hits, although far from watercooler shows were "Moesha", "Girlfriends" and "The Parkers".

[tooltime1987]

The CW Network killed UPN and WB in September 2006!!!

[TMC]

Originally Posted by factsoflife

I actually have that book and it's well worth a read. i bought it about a year ago at Christmas. It should be available at most chain bookstores like Barnes & Noble or Borders... It's a great book.

Basically my take on WB and UPN is this---they were both competing for very small, fragmented audiences and neither one was having much success---they had never turned a profit ever and by the end whatever had made WB special was gone---they got lazy and stopped taking risks on new ideas and people moved on... I think that it's sad because the WB was a great network and i miss it to this day. I even used to watch some UPN shows in the day, Moesha is one of my all time favorite shows.

The merger made CW far weaker than either of the previous networks, as The WB targeted the younger generation and UPN largely targeted a more "urban" audience. From the time of the merger.

[factsoflife]

I think a big problem with the CW is that they stopped even trying to do comedy. They totally abandoned the genre in favor of nothing but dramas, sci-fi and superheroes.

[irehtman]

Originally Posted by TMC

The merger made CW far weaker than either of the previous networks, as The WB targeted the younger generation and UPN largely targeted a more "urban" audience. From the time of the merger

The younger generation of the WB does not talk about hell, but had creative difference problems which they cannot solve on time and that can lead to deaths.

The urban do talk about hell, but doesn't have any problems on creative differences in order to solve on time and that's why most of the urban got renewed beyond their first season and then replace all WB younger generations when the merge approached.

[irehtman]

Originally Posted by factsoflife

I think a big problem with the CW is that they stopped even trying to do comedy. They totally abandoned the genre in favor of nothing but dramas, sci-fi and superheroes.

The WB/CW comedies had the worst problems when getting axed too soon. It turns out that these WB/CW comedies have creative difference problems that could not get solved on time and there was something wrong with that former WB network Jamie Kellner.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by Yong Fang

UPN and WB died off because they were crappy networks with cast off TV programming that the major four networks did not want.

Also, their demographic was poorer, non white and urban. The majority of the country did not like or want to watch these shows. These were "black shows" and had a niche audience. Sort of like BET with a bigger budget.

Swear I am not racist.....but having a network (or any business) who only caters to 15% of the public isn't going to make it. Probably not a bad plan on paper, but did not work in reality.

Even back then, I felt that the WB was a better organized network and had more going for it. Really all that UPN had was Star Trek and the black centric sitcoms (and to a lesser extent, SmackDown). What really hurt UPN in particular is that Paramount meddled to make sure UPN's New York area station, WWOR, never carried UPN over its national superstation feed. In contrast to this, The WB, was quite happy to let WGN's superstation feed carry the network until 1999, when they had enough good local carriage and had established their viewership much better than UPN ever did.

[TMC]

Originally Posted by factsoflife

I think a big problem with the CW is that they stopped even trying to do comedy. They totally abandoned the genre in favor of nothing but dramas, sci-fi and superheroes.

http://www.refinery29.com/2016/09/12...hows-cancelled

Upon the launch of The CW (that's C for CBS, W for Warner Bros) in 2006, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves promised in a press release: "The CW is going to be a real competitor, a destination for young audiences, diverse audiences, and a real favorite with advertisers." Apparently that meant a network full of shows featuring mostly white casts. While a few UPN shows, like Girlfriends and Everybody Hates Chris, trickled over to The CW, by 2008, every show that had gotten its start on UPN had officially ended.

After UPN closed up shop, One on One creator Eunetta Boone told Entertainment Weekly: "I wouldn’t say because of the merger that Black sitcoms are dead... But they’re definitely dormant." A full 10 years later, and Black sitcoms are still dormant. An entire decade has passed without any other networks making an effort to fill the hole left behind by the disappearance of family-friendly Black series.

[8traxrule]

The elephant in the room, screen clutter, killed both of them. I remember tuning into UPN and not only getting their logo constantly on the screen, but the word "PRIME" right under it, as if I also needed to be constantly told that it was prime time. (Did UPN even HAVE anything on outside of prime time hours?) The last time I saw a WB show, it had "ALL NEW" next to the logo. I suppose waiting for a rerun would have let me watch it with less crap on the screen. Now of course CW stands for Can't Watch.

[TMC]

I'm quite sure that I posted this two part video that details the history of UPN:




Since I started this thread, I have come across discussions about the rise and fall of UPN elsewhere. One issue that was made of note is that UPN was never really able to get a significant enough market or reputation to become bigger that what they were. In other words, they could never really shake off a reputation of being a low rent network for lesser, sometimes trashy or stereotypical shows. The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeffier, Homeboys in Outer Space, The Mullets, Shasta McNasty, and reality shows like Chains of Love are perfect examples of this.

This was despite the fact that they managed to get a respectable amount of African-American centered sitcoms and had some interesting shows that other networks wouldn't try. By the time that actual critical darlings like Veronica Mars started showing up on UPN, it was too little and too late.

Imagine if UPN had shows right from the start that were able to give them the needed attention and momentum to the point where profitable shows eventually took root on it? Fox quite obviously had that with Married...with Children and The Simpsons during its early years. Even though they may have been perceived as being a tad bit "trashy" when compared to what the "Big Three" networks had to offer at the time, those two shows none the less, had a "boldness" (shows like MWC redefined the TV sitcom and grabbed a lot of attention) about them that allowed them to get over the hump so to speak.

Of course, what also probably helped in Fox's case was that they had Rupert Murdoch's money and well-established media presence that was behind it since day one. Murdoch simply put, wanted it to compete with the "Big 3" networks and was willing to pay for it. On the contrary, were Paramount or Warner Bros were nearly as committed as Fox? Maybe they tried way too hard to be everything to too many different people. They unlike Fox, played it safe and produced nothing innovative to define themselves.

With UPN, what they really had going for themselves in terms of "breakout" (at least from a pop culture/mainstream sense) or "must see" event shows were Star Trek: Voyager and SmackDown. Voyager was of course, connected to a legacy franchise that launched the network and SmackDown was the only program that did consistently good numbers (even though it was really a niche audience for the network). And I'm not entirely sure that even Star Trek (either Voyager or Enterprise) could truly or seriously elevate UPN in the end.

[Frank Gannucci]

Originally Posted by TMC

What really hurt UPN in particular is that Paramount meddled to make sure UPN's New York area station, WWOR, never carried UPN over its national superstation feed. In contrast to this, The WB, was quite happy to let WGN's superstation feed carry the network until 1999, when they had enough good local carriage and had established their viewership much better than UPN ever did.

That was a stupid decision on the part of UPN not allowing the national feed of WWOR to carry their network.

[TMC]

Recalling the rise and fall of black shows on UPN

"By the time 1998 rolled around, black TV shows with black leads telling black stories were no longer as plentiful as they had been earlier in the decade," says Kelley L. Carter. "The Cosby Show aired its last original episode in April 1992. A Different World reached that mark in July 1993 and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air stopped in May 1996. The heyday of black appointment television had faded away. NBC tried to maintain the glory with In The House, starring LL Cool J, who, like Will Smith before him, was banking on an established musical fan base to carry over into his newfound acting career. But after two seasons, the series was canceled in 1996. UPN, which was launched in 1995, was happy to try and pick up both the show and the mantle." UPN tried to copy successful black and multiracial shows on other networks like Living Single, In Living Color, New York Undercover and Martin. "We nicknamed it, ‘You Pick a Negro Network.’ That was the nickname," recalls Debbie Allen, who co-starred with LL Cool J on In the House. "They told us that they were just doing all kinds of black shows. I guess they were trying to follow Fox’s shoes. Fox had become a big TV network, starting black programming, and they were doing the same thing, but they were putting on some really pretty bad shows. And I remember one of my actors from A Different World got cast in the show. She said, ‘Ma, don’t you watch it, don’t you dare watch it! I’m telling you now, don’t you watch it!’" But the period of black programming on UPN didn't last long as the network sought to appeal to white viewers. "If you offer a night, or if you offer a couple of nights of shows filled with black stars who don’t get much play in mainstream Hollywood and were stars of their own shows, then black people will show up and watch. You then have an automatic audience that you can build on,” says NPR TV critic Eric Deggans. “Unfortunately, the way that cycle used to work is that these networks would get their early audience with these shows and then slowly start to focus their broadcast networks away from black viewers. Because they wanted the greater [advertising dollars] that came from shows that appealed to white viewers." By 2006, UPN was shut down and merged with The WB to form The CW, which focused on appealing to young white female viewers.

[DJM77]

Originally Posted by TMC

"I remember one of my actors from A Different World got cast in the show. She said, ‘Ma, don’t you watch it, don’t you dare watch it! I’m telling you now, don’t you watch it!’"

I wonder who that was and what the show was.

[Old School]

Originally Posted by DJM77

I wonder who that was and what the show was.

That's too easy. Darryl M Bell (Ron Johnson from A Different World). The tv show was- Homeboys In Outer Space.

[Old School]

Originally Posted by TMC

Recalling the rise and fall of black shows on UPN

"By the time 1998 rolled around, black TV shows with black leads telling black stories were no longer as plentiful as they had been earlier in the decade," says Kelley L. Carter. "The Cosby Show aired its last original episode in April 1992. A Different World reached that mark in July 1993 and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air stopped in May 1996. The heyday of black appointment television had faded away. NBC tried to maintain the glory with In The House, starring LL Cool J, who, like Will Smith before him, was banking on an established musical fan base to carry over into his newfound acting career. But after two seasons, the series was canceled in 1996. UPN, which was launched in 1995, was happy to try and pick up both the show and the mantle." UPN tried to copy successful black and multiracial shows on other networks like Living Single, In Living Color, New York Undercover and Martin. "We nicknamed it, ‘You Pick a Negro Network.’ That was the nickname," recalls Debbie Allen, who co-starred with LL Cool J on In the House. "They told us that they were just doing all kinds of black shows. I guess they were trying to follow Fox’s shoes. Fox had become a big TV network, starting black programming, and they were doing the same thing, but they were putting on some really pretty bad shows. And I remember one of my actors from A Different World got cast in the show. She said, ‘Ma, don’t you watch it, don’t you dare watch it! I’m telling you now, don’t you watch it!’" But the period of black programming on UPN didn't last long as the network sought to appeal to white viewers. "If you offer a night, or if you offer a couple of nights of shows filled with black stars who don’t get much play in mainstream Hollywood and were stars of their own shows, then black people will show up and watch. You then have an automatic audience that you can build on,” says NPR TV critic Eric Deggans. “Unfortunately, the way that cycle used to work is that these networks would get their early audience with these shows and then slowly start to focus their broadcast networks away from black viewers. Because they wanted the greater [advertising dollars] that came from shows that appealed to white viewers." By 2006, UPN was shut down and merged with The WB to form The CW, which focused on appealing to young white female viewers.

Facts...they tried to build up with an African American audience then left them in the dust programming wise after a few years.