In 1995, Viacom and Chris-Craft Industries' United Television launched United Paramount Network (UPN) with Star Trek: Voyager as its flagship series, fulfilling Barry Diller's plan for a Paramount network from 25 years earlier. In 1999, Viacom bought out United Television's interests, and handed responsibility for the start-up network to the newly acquired CBS unit, which Viacom bought in 1999 – an ironic confluence of events as Paramount had once invested in CBS, and Viacom had once been the syndication arm of CBS as well. [1] During this period the studio acquired some 30 television stations to support the UPN network as well acquiring and merging in the assets of Republic Pictures, Spelling Television and Viacom Television, almost doubling the size of the studio's television library.
Lasting eleven years before being merged with The WB network to become The CW in 2006, UPN would feature many of the shows it originally produced for other networks, and would take numerous gambles on series such as Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Enterprise that would have otherwise either gone direct-to-cable or become first-run syndication to independent stations across the country (as Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: The Next Generation were).
The original incarnation of Viacom purchased Paramount in 1993, with the deal closing in March 1994; Viacom then merged its own group of five CBS- and NBC-affiliated stations to the PSG fold. Shortly afterward Viacom entered into a joint venture with Chris-Craft Industries, which owned several television stations as part of its United Television subsidiary, to launch the United Paramount Network (UPN). Five of PSG's original six stations, along with several acquisitions such as WSBK-TV in Boston, [2] became charter affiliates of the network when UPN launched in January 1995. PSG sold off two of its original six stations as well; KRRT and WTXF were sold to other companies, with the latter becoming a Fox-owned station. To make up for the loss of its Philadelphia-owned station, PSG bought Philadelphia independent station WGBS-TV and renamed it to WPSG-TV, and moved the UPN affiliation there. The company eventually divested itself of the CBS and NBC stations it held and purchased more UPN affiliates as the 1990s continued.
This was the first season to feature the United Paramount Network and The WB Television Network, as both launched in January 1995. Both networks would ultimately shutdown and form The CW in September 2006. In January 1995, BHC Communications affiliated all of its stations, except the Salt Lake City and San Antonio outlets, with the newly launched United Paramount Network, which it fully owned and financed but ran with Paramount/Viacom, the network's producer. In December 1996, Paramount exercised its option to buy half of the Network by paying half of the losses ($160 million). Included in the deal was to continue selling UPN Star Trek: Voyager instead of placing it in syndication.
When WWOR, channel 9 in New York City became a UPN affiliate in 1995, the WWOR EMI Service also covered up the network's shows, due to Paramount (although the network's sole owner-turned-half owner Chris-Craft owned the station) using syndication exclusivity to keep UPN's shows off the national WWOR feed—in contrast, rival superstation WGN carried programming from The WB Television Network on its national feed until nationwide terrestrial coverage was deemed sufficient to discontinue its carriage over the national WGN feed in October 1999. As a result of the syndication exclusivity claims by UPN, if New York City viewers of WWOR saw Star Trek: Voyager , cable viewers throughout the rest of the country saw Hazel reruns in the same timeslot.
This is the first fall season for The WB and UPN. The schedules of either network would not be constant until fall 1999, when the WB decided to air shows from Sunday through Friday and UPN would air Monday through Friday.
In January 1998, United Television acquired a third UHF station in Baltimore for $80 million, changed its call letters to WUTB, and made the station a UPN affiliate. United, in October 1997, agreed to purchase WRBW (channel 65), a UHF station and UPN affiliate in Orlando, Florida, for $60 million and possible further considerations (WRBW was later acquired by Fox Television Stations after the BHC-News Corp. merger, and is now a MyNetworkTV owned-and-operated station). In April 1998, United took a minority stake in Bohbot Entertainment & Media. [32]
In 1999, Viacom announced plans to merge with CBS Corporation. Because of a regulation upheld by the FCC years ago, prohibiting companies from owning two broadcast networks. Viacom's announcement raised questions regarding the future of Chris-Craft and Viacom's joint ownership of UPN. In Viacom and Chris-Craft's original agreement, two options for exiting the partnership had been determined—buying out the other partner or paying for what the partner had invested up to that date and providing funds for the future operation of UPN. Either option would cost Viacom substantial sums of money. Industry analysts agreed that Chris-Craft could emerge the winner and offered other possible scenarios—that Viacom might offer Chris-Craft some of its stations in exchange for severing the partnership or that Chris-Craft might sell Viacom's share to another company.
However, after the Viacom-CBS merger was completed in 2000, a lawsuit was filed by BHC against the Viacom-CBS merger as BHC saw this as a breach of the UPN partnership. BHC lost the suit and sold its remaining ownership in UPN to Viacom for $5 million. Shortly thereafter, Chris-Craft announced that it was getting out of broadcasting after losing $500 million on UPN, the possibility of UPN shutting down or having their affiliation pulled. Many industry observers thought Viacom would end up getting the stations, but Viacom's bid lost out to News Corporation's Fox Television Stations, resulting in a sale which closed on July 31, 2001. [54] [55]
It was on UPN, a network that few people watch. And because of some management screw-ups between the first and second seasons the time slot kept changing and we lost our viewers. We were also scheduled to follow the worst TV show ever made: Shasta McNasty . On TV, your viewership is 75% determined by how many people watched the show before yours. That killed us. [66]
During the late 1990s, United Paramount Network produced a number of television films branded "Blockbuster Shockwave Cinema," in conjunction with sponsor (and sister company) Blockbuster Video. Almost all were science fiction films, and likewise, their after-airing availability on home video was exclusive to Blockbuster stores. From UPN's inception until 2000, the network also offered a hosted movie series called the UPN Movie Trailer to their stations. The show featured mostly older Hollywood action and comedy films, often those made by Paramount Pictures. Movie Trailer was discontinued in 2000 to give stations that opted for them room for a second weekend run of Star Trek: Enterprise and America's Next Top Model (and later, Veronica Mars ). There were also three Paramount-branded blocks on the company's owned-and-operated stations ("O&Os") only: Paramount Teleplex as the main brand for movies at any given timeslot, Paramount Prime Movie for primetime features, and the Paramount Late Movie on late nights.
This would be the final season of broadcasting for both UPN and The WB. They would merge to form The CW next season. UPN quietly ceased operations on Friday, September 15, 2006, with its usual airing of WWE Friday Night SmackDown! ; in addition, some stations aired the network's usual, but optional, weekend repeat block. The low-key closure was not surprising given that in nine media markets, including the three largest, UPN was not available because the local affiliates were owned by Fox Television Stations and switched to its new network, MyNetworkTV, on September 5. UPN programs stopped airing on WPWR (channel 50) in Chicago and KUTP (channel 45) in Phoenix on September 1, and on the other seven Fox-owned stations (including WWOR-TV (channel 9) in New York City and KCOP (channel 13) in Los Angeles) the day before, August 31.
Several CW affiliates began airing SmackDown! and some other CW-renewed UPN programming a few weeks early to replace UPN affiliates that had switched to MyNetworkTV. [181] Otherwise, it was unclear whether MyNetworkTV affiliates would air UPN or WB programs at all. [182] Additionally, Tribune-owned Fox affiliate WXMI (channel 17) in Grand Rapids, Michigan aired Smackdown on tape delay between WXSP-CA (channel 15)'s switch to MyNetworkTV and the launch of WWMT (channel 3)'s digital subchannel as the local CW affiliate.
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that operated from 1995 to 2006. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' subsidiary, United Television. Viacom turned it into a joint venture in 1996 after acquiring a 50% stake in UPN, and subsequently purchased Chris-Craft's remaining stake in 2000. On December 31, 2005, UPN was kept by CBS Corporation, which was the new name for Viacom when it split into two separate companies. On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Time Warner jointly announced that the companies would shut down UPN and competitor The WB to launch a new joint venture network later that year. UPN ceased broadcasting on September 15, 2006, with The WB following two days later. Select programs from both networks moved to the new network, The CW, when it launched on September 18, 2006.
The WB Television Network was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner and the Tribune Broadcasting subsidiary of the Tribune Company, with the former acting as controlling partner. The network aired programs targeting teenagers and young adults between the ages of 13 and 35, while its children's division, Kids' WB, targeted children between the ages of 4 and 12.
Eve is an American television sitcom created by Meg DeLoatch that originally aired for three seasons on UPN from September 15, 2003, to May 11, 2006. Featuring an ensemble cast consisting of Eve, Jason George, Ali Landry, Natalie Desselle-Reid, Brian Hooks, and Sean Maguire, the show revolves around two sets of male and female friends attempting to navigate relationships with the opposite sex. The executive producers were Robert Greenblatt and David Janollari; the series was produced by The Greenblatt/Janollari Studio and Mega Diva Inc. in association with Warner Bros. Television for UPN.
Kids' WB was an American children's programming block that originally aired on The WB from September 9, 1995, to September 16, 2006, and later on The CW from September 23, 2006, to May 17, 2008. Initially launched as a competitor to Fox Kids, Kids' WB aired primarily during the Saturday morning and weekday after-school time slots, although airtimes for the block's programming varied at the local affiliate's discretion.
KSTW, branded on-air as Seattle 11, is an independent television station licensed to Tacoma, Washington, United States, serving the Seattle area. Owned by the CBS News and Stations group, the station maintains studios on East Madison Street in Seattle's Cherry Hill neighborhood, and its transmitter is located on Capitol Hill east of downtown.
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The following is the 1994–95 network television schedule for the six major English language commercial broadcast networks in the United States. The schedule covers primetime hours from September 1994 through August 1995. The schedule is followed by a list per network of returning series, new series, and series cancelled after the 1993–94 season. All times are Eastern and Pacific, with certain exceptions, such as Monday Night Football. This was the first season to feature the United Paramount Network and The WB Television Network, as both launched in January 1995. Both networks would ultimately shutdown and merge to form The CW in September 2006.
WPWR-TV, branded as Fox Chicago Plus, is a television station licensed to Gary, Indiana, United States. It is one of two commercial television stations in the Chicago market to be licensed in Indiana. WPWR-TV is owned by Fox Television Stations alongside WFLD, an owned-and-operated station of the Fox network; the stations share studios on North Michigan Avenue in the Chicago Loop and transmitter facilities atop the Willis Tower. The station carries programming from Fox's secondary programming service, MyNetworkTV, in late night.
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All of Us is an American sitcom that premiered on the UPN network in the United States on September 16, 2003, where it aired for its first three seasons. On October 1, 2006, the show moved to The CW, a new network formed by the merger of UPN and The WB, where it aired for one more season before being cancelled on May 15, 2007.
Love, Inc. is an American television sitcom created by Andrew Secunda, which originally aired for one season on UPN from September 22, 2005, to May 11, 2006. With an ensemble cast led by Busy Philipps, Vince Vieluf, Reagan Gomez-Preston, Ion Overman and Holly Robinson Peete, the show revolves around five matchmakers working at a dating agency. The series was produced by Chase TV, the Littlefield Company, Burg/Koules Television, and Paramount Television. It was distributed by UPN in its original run and later by LivingTV and Nelonen in the United Kingdom and Finland respectively. The executive producers were Adam Chase, Warren Littlefield, Mark Burg and Oren Koules.
The CW Network, LLC is an American commercial broadcast television network that is controlled by Nexstar Media Group through a 75-percent ownership interest. The network's name is derived from the first letters of the names of its two founding co-owners CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. Nexstar closed its acquisition of a controlling interest in the network on October 3, 2022, with Paramount Global and Warner Bros. Discovery each retaining a 12.5-percent ownership stake.
MyNetworkTV is an American commercial broadcast television syndication service and former television network owned by Fox Corporation, operated by its Fox Television Stations division, and distributed through the syndication structure of Fox First Run. Under the ownership structure of Fox Corporation, the service is incorporated as a subsidiary company, Master Distribution Service, Inc..
KCOP-TV, branded Fox 11 Plus, is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox outlet KTTV. The two stations share studios at the Fox Television Center located in West Los Angeles; KCOP-TV's transmitter is located atop Mount Wilson.
The Paramount Television Service was the name of a proposed but ultimately unrealized "fourth television network" from the U.S. film studio Paramount Pictures. It was a forerunner of the later UPN, which launched 17 years later.
In January 2006, the United States' two "second-tier" television networks, UPN and The WB, announced they would both cease operations on September 15 and 17 respectively, and their operations would be transferred to a new joint-venture "fifth" network, The CW. Meanwhile, Fox Television Stations signed up with MyNetworkTV, a new "sixth" network owned by then-parent company News Corporation's Fox Entertainment Group.
The first incarnation of Paramount Television was operated as the television production division of the American film studio Paramount Pictures, until it changed its name to CBS Paramount Television on January 17, 2006.
The WB was an American broadcast television network operated as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner and the Tribune Broadcasting subsidiary of the Tribune Company. Launched on January 11, 1995, it was one of two networks developed by major film and television studios in late 1993—alongside the United Paramount Network —to compete with Fox and the longer established Big Three television networks.
...and the cast reunited on a 1998 episode of Love Boat: The Next Wave, UPN's unsuccessful franchise relaunch.