The WB Television Network Turns 25 This Year

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https://www.pajiba.com/tv_reviews/th...-this-year.php

We are now eight hundred fifteen days into the year 2020 (or at least it feels that way with how the month of January has been making many of us feel) and if someone were to tell you that another network/streaming service is about to be created and make its debut so that we have yet another viewing option to pay money for, we’d just shrug our shoulders and keep it moving as this really is the new normal for us when it comes to our options for entertainment. But in 1994, when both Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures announced that they would each be creating two new networks to air alongside ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX (which was still experiencing its own growing pains), people stopped in their tracks and wanted to know what these two new networks had planned and what they were going to bring to the table.

And on January 11, 1995, the WB Television Network made its nationwide debut for all (with actual access to the network, as it wasn’t airing everywhere on all affiliates just yet) to see.

As the ratings for its shows kept declining and profits kept decreasing, The WB as well as United Paramount Network a.k.a. UPN a.k.a. the other upstart network that made it debut in January of 1995) which was also suffering from these same problems, eventually reached the conclusion that both networks should permanently shut down operations and combine their resources to create one network to take their place: The CW. Which definitely didn’t have the same ring to it as The WB, but at this point, Warner Bros. and Paramount was primarily concerned with pulling themselves out of the freefall that they were in.

The news of The WB shutting down for good wasn’t easy news for many fans to accept, and the network’s final night of broadcasting didn’t make it much easier, as The WB aired the pilot episodes for Buffy, Angel, Felicity, and Dawson’s Creek while airing commercials in between that paid tribute to the network and its famous faces.

And on September 17, 2006, The WB said thank you and goodbye, and The CW took its place.

And as much as we now talk about how television as a whole would be better with more limited series that wrap up after one year and have less than twelve episodes a season, it would also be good for us to be reminded that television is television and that it’s not movies or books or “novels for television” or “X Amount Of Hour-Long Movies” or whatever showrunners like to say when describing their television shows in ways that don’t make them sound like television shows, and as if television is an art form that needs to be elevated or transcended. From 1995 to 2006, The WB taught and reminded many people that television is not a bad thing, and that it’s not something that should be scoffed at or disrespected. And it also taught them to love and enjoy what they were seeing onscreen and to appreciate all of the hard work and ingenuity that made so much of it possible.

Which is one hell of a legacy for any network to leave behind. And why The WB was, is, and probably always will still be missed after all these years.