In the mid 1990's, it was clear the Fox network (thanks in part to the deep pockets of owner Rupert Murdoch) was here to stay as America’s fourth broadcast network. The success of Fox, coupled with relaxed federal broadcast regulations, led rival movie studios Warner Brothers and Paramount to stake their claims in the broadcast world.

The WB and UPN networks went on the air within days of each other, and each sought to carve a different slice of the audience during their decade-long existence. But statistically, it was virtually impossible for either of the “netlets,” as “Variety” magazine called them, to reach as many potential viewers as ABC, CBS, NBC and even Fox. That’s because both WB and UPN had fewer affiliated stations (many of them relatively low-powered channels on the UHF band), with some smaller cities unable to get either or both of the networks. As a result, they reached fewer households than their larger rivals.

And neither of the newcomers could turn a consistent profit, thanks to high start-up costs, relatively low audience ratings (and advertising revenues) and rising expenses for production and talent. By 2006, it was clear neither WB nor UPN could survive for much longer. That year, the parent companies of both networks agreed to pull the plug on their respective operations and create a new service, The CW. Time will tell if the decision was a wise one.

But UPN and WB made their marks on the American pop culture scene; each appealed to segments of the audience who usually didn’t watch the older broadcasters on a regular basis and were no longer served by Fox when that network began aiming toward a more mainstream (though younger) audience. And each had some distinctive, compelling programmes to boast of. Here’s a condensed history:

IN THE BEGINNING: AN ALMOST FOURTH NETWORK

Years before Fox went on the air, Paramount Pictures was seriously contemplating its own broadcast network empire. It wasn’t surprising; Paramount had been majority owner of the defunct DuMont network. And when it was ordered to divest its owned theatres by the U.S. Supreme Court after World War II, the company that was spun off from the studio–United Paramount Theatres–eventually merged with ABC, making it a stronger network. There was even a short-lived effort to create a Paramount television network in the late 1940's.

By the late 1970's, there were more independent stations in the US than ever before, and a growing number of studios and production companies were creating original programmes to help fill the schedules of those stations. One of the most successful came from Universal Studios, which put together a “network” of independent stations to air newly-produced original movies and miniseries. Called “Operation Prime Time,” it was a success with viewers and advertisers.

Paramount’s chairman, Barry Diller (a former programmer at ABC) wanted to take the company into the TV network business, and in June 1977, he proposed the launch of the Paramount Television Service. Diller’s plan was to air the PTS on Saturday nights, initially starting with a brand-new series version of ‘Star Trek’ and a batch of made-for-television films. It never got off the ground, because Diller could not persuade Paramount’s board of directors to fund the project. Charles Bluhdorn, the owner of conglomerate Gulf+Western (which owned Paramount), also came out against PTS, fearing large economic losses.

Diller retreated; his proposed ‘Star Trek: Phase II’ series eventually became a theatrical movie (“Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which proved successful enough to launch a profitable “Trek” film franchise). Paramount also began producing more original syndicated shows for local stations, scoring hits with ‘Solid Gold,’ ‘Entertainment Tonight’ and two series sequels to ‘Star Trek’ (‘The Next Generation’ and ‘Deep Space Nine’). When Diller became head of 20th Century Fox Studios in 1984, he found a kindred spirit in the studio’s new owner, Rupert Murdoch. It was Murdoch who eventually purchased the six television stations owned by Metromedia (including stations in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago), and used them as the basis of the Fox Network.

By 1993, independent stations were feeling the heat not only from Fox, but from cable television–which was making steady inroads in audiences once dominated by the broadcast networks. That same year, the Federal Communications Commission eliminated the 23-year-old financial interest and syndication rules (or fin-syn), which kept networks from owning lucrative syndicated programmes. (It also restricted how many hours of original programmes each network could produce and own in prime time.) When Fox went on the air in 1986, it was not technically a network under FCC rules (it programmed just enough hours every week to skate under the “network” definition–and its restrictions). In 1990, the FCC granted Fox a waiver from the fin-syn rules, allowing the network to expand its schedule while its 20th Century Fox arm continued to produce new shows for the other networks and syndicate its lucrative library of off-network shows such as M*A*S*H.

The end of fin-syn also emboldened rival studios to jump into the broadcast network business. Within a few years, Capital Cities-ABC was purchased by The Walt Disney Company; CBS was initially purchased by Westinghouse (a major television station owner), then was swallowed by Viacom, the former syndication arm of CBS which also owned Showtime, MTV and Nickelodeon, among other cable networks–and had also acquired Paramount. That left NBC as the only television network with no ties to a major Hollywood studio, a situation that was rectified in 2004 when parent General Electric merged with Vivendi-Universal.

The elimination of the fin-syn rules also emboldened Paramount executives, who soon decided the time was right to fulfill the studio’s long desired goal of a television network. But Paramount wasn’t the only studio to have similar thoughts. Time-Warner, parent of the Warner Brothers studios (along with such cable networks as CNN and TNT) also moved to create a broadcast network. In the early 1990's, Time-Warner launched the Prime Time Entertainment Network, a programming service that was jointly owned by Chris-Craft Industries, which owned independent TV stations in New York, Los Angeles and other major markets. The PTEM (which was similar to “Operation Prime Time”) scored successes with dramas including ‘Babylon 5'; ‘Time Trax’ and ‘Kung Fu: The Legend Continues’. The next move was inevitable: In 1993, both Paramount and Time-Warner announced plans to operate their own respective networks. The new channels would not be available for more than a year, giving both companies time to lure potential affiliates and sign producers to create programmes. Both also lured executives from rival networks–including former Fox executives; their experiences in launching a new network from scratch proved vital. And it made sense to follow the Fox playbook by starting slowly with one or two nights of programming aimed at a specific audience, then expanding to more evenings and other time slots. The question remained whether either of the newcomers could duplicate Fox’s success.

THE WB: THE FROG, A VAMPIRE SLAYER AND COURTING YOUNG WOMEN

First on the air was The WB television network, which was launched January 11th, 1995 by airing just two hours on Wednesday nights. The first offerings of WB were comedies–‘The Wayans Bros’ and ‘The Parent ‘Hood’ (both featuring mostly African-American casts); ‘Unhappily Ever After’, a sitcom created by some of the folks behind Fox’s hit ‘Married...With Children’; and ‘Muscle’, an adult comedy set in a fitness club. None of the initial series did very well, but all (except for ‘Muscle’) were renewed for a second season.

The fall of 2005 saw WB expand to a second night (Sundays) and launch its first hour-long drama, an Aaron Spelling-produced soap called ‘Savannah’. A year later, the WB added Monday nights to its growing schedule, and came up with a Spelling-produced family drama about a minister and his large brood. ‘7th Heaven’ eventually became WB’s highest-rated (and as it turned out, longest-running) series. WB followed that hit up with two more sitcoms aimed at African-Americans–‘The Jamie Foxx Show’ and ‘The Steve Harvey Show’.

In March 1997, WB found the programme that would chart a new direction for the network. Debuting as a mid-season replacement, ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ was based on a relatively unsuccessful film of the same name. But in the hands of Josh Whedon, who wrote the film version, the TV ‘Buffy’ became an engrossing supernatural series about teenagers with unusual powers, led by newcomer Sarah Michelle Gellar in the title role. ‘Buffy’ quickly became a hit (relatively speaking) for WB, and proved especially popular with teenage girls and young women. That demographic success led The WB to start courting the young female market, filling a niche the other networks were all but ignoring. In January 1998, WB launched ‘Dawson’s Creek,’ a continuing drama focusing on teenagers not unlike Fox’s ‘Beverly Hills, 90210'. But at “The Creek,” as fans called it, the teens were all youthful, beautiful and handsome; the dialogue was far more adult than ‘90210' and the problems of its cast more complex. It didn’t take long for ‘Dawson’s’ to overtake ‘Buffy’ as WB’s highest-rated series. The network followed those successes with more dramas aimed at young women–‘Felicity,’ ‘Popular,’ ‘Charmed.” ‘Roswell’ and ‘Angel’ (a ‘Buffy’ spin-off). Many of the new entries had supernatural themes; all had young and beautiful actors in the lead roles; and intense romances played major roles in each of the shows. WB also launched a Saturday morning cartoon schedule that proved to be competitive with the other networks.

By the fall of 2001, however, some of WB’s dramas were losing their core audiences as viewers became older and searched for new programmes. Still, WB pulled in more viewers than rival UPN (which eventually snatched ‘Buffy’ and ‘Roswell’), and the network came up with several more hits–the dramas ‘Gilmore Girls,’ ‘Everwood’ and ‘Smallville’ (a new take on the “Superman” saga) and the family comedy ‘Reba,’ starring country music superstar Reba McEntire, which became the most successful sitcom in WB history.

By the fall of 2005, WB dramas ‘One Tree Hill’ and ‘Supernatural’ clicked with viewers, but other new hour-long series such as ‘Tarzan’ and the critically acclaimed political saga ‘Jack & Bobby’ were shunned by audiences. As a result, WB’s ratings fell below UPN. WB dumped its original logo, the animated Michigan J. Frog and its slogan “Home Of The Frog,” which had been in use since the network’s debut. One WB executive admitted the decision was made to move the network away from its teen image: "(Michigan J. Frog) perpetuated the young-teen feel of the network, and that is not the image we want to put to our audience." (Michigan was replaced by the classic WB studio logo with paint splatters–tastefully done, of course.) As 2006 began, WB was still losing money, and there was growing speculation of its demise. By this time UPN was having similar problems, despite a strong early start.

UPN: THE NETWORK OF “STAR TREK” AND YOUNG MEN

UPN was jointly owned by Paramount and Chris-Craft (the initials stood for United Paramount Network). It had a clear image when the network hit the airwaves on January 16th, 1995–five days after The WB’s debut. Starting with two hours of programmes on Monday nights, UPN’s big draw was yet another series version of ‘Star Trek;’ the new ‘Voyager’ was the first in the franchise to have a woman as commander of the now-famous Enterprise (Captain Kathryn Janeway, played by Kate Mulgrew). It was also the first ‘Star Trek’ spin-off to air over a television network since the original series ran on NBC from 1966 to 1969. The two-hour pilot did very well in the ratings, despite UPN’s shortage of affiliated stations. The following week, ‘Voyager’ settled into its hour-long format, joined by two male-oriented sitcoms–‘Platypus Man’ and ‘Pig Sty’. (By the fall of 1995, those two comedies were off the air.)

Subsequent UPN series targeted mostly younger males, including dramas such as ‘Nowhere Man; ‘Legend’; ‘Marker’ and ‘The Sentinel’. In 1997, UPN found moderate success with the teen-oriented sitcom ‘Brandy’, starring singer Brandy Norwood. But UPN also became known as a network that accepted other networks’ cast-offs–including the comedies ‘Clueless’ and ‘The Hughleys’ (which originally aired on ABC) and (by the fall of 2001) ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Roswell’ from The WB–which accepted its own cast-offs, including the sitcoms ‘Sister Sister’ and ‘Sabrina The Teenage Witch’ from ABC.

UPN also earned an image as the ‘Star Trek’ network–which was reinforced when ‘Voyager’ made way after seven seasons for yet another take on the franchise, ‘Enterprise’. By the late 1990's, UPN attracted fewer viewers than The WB (and both were well behind the Big Four networks). One reason for UPN’s ratings problems was its habit of airing rather horrid high-concept series–including such comedies as ‘Homeboys In Outer Space’ (self-explanatory); ‘The Mullets’ (a comedy about two child-like adult brothers in their early 20's) and–probably worst of all--‘The Secret Life Of Desmond Pfeiffer,’ a send up of Abraham and Mary Lincoln as if they were Bill and Hillary Clinton circa 1861, complete with borderline racism. (Civil rights groups protested the series, but audiences beat them to it– ‘Desmond Pfeiffer’ disappeared after four episodes.) Like WB, UPN also aired cartoons and other programmes aimed at kids; unlike WB, UPN’s kid block aired on Sunday mornings and for a few hours each weekday through 2003.

In 2000, Paramount’s parent company Viacom bought out Chris-Craft’s half-ownership of the network. The year before, UPN found an unexpected hit with ‘WWF Smackdown!’, which brought professional wrestling back to network television for the first time since the 1950's. ‘Smackdown!’ was an instant hit with young males and gave UPN a strong programme to counter NBC’s sitcoms on Thursday nights. In 2000, UPN introduced its longest-running comedy, ‘Girlfriends’, a saga of four African-American women not unlike HBO’s successful ‘Sex & The City’. (A product of actor Kelsey Grammer’s production company, the show would run eight seasons and spawn a spin-off, ‘The Game’). By 2003, UPN’s fortunes brightened with the arrival of the network’s first reality series hit, ‘America’s Next Top Model.’

A year later came the female-oriented teen mystery-drama ‘Veronica Mars.’ And in the fall of 2005, UPN introduced the Chris Rock-produced family comedy ‘Everybody Hates Chris,’ which instantly took a big bite out of NBC’s fading ‘Friends’ spin-off ‘Joey’ and the Fox teen soap ‘The O.C.’ By that time, UPN’s target audience included young females and African-Americans–a situation that led to the cancellation of ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’ (which was watched mostly by young men). But not unlike The WB, UPN failed to generate a profit. In fact, both networks lost a combined $2 billion over their respective 11-year histories. By 2005, Viacom had spun off its broadcast holdings into a new company, CBS Corporation. Its chairman Les Moonves (who had turned CBS into the top-rated network) took control of ailing UPN, installing his own team to develop new programmes–and, as it turned out, began discussions with Time-Warner about a possible merger of the two smaller networks.

A NEW ERA: WB+UPN=THE CW/

On January 24th, 2006, CBS and Time-Warner executives announced their respective networks would combine into one entity, the CW Network (“C” for CBS and “W” for Warner). Each company would own 50% of the new network, but clearly it would be CBS–specifically Moonves–who would have day-to-day control of the operation. The merger caused a major shake-up in station ownership and affiliation, especially for the Fox network’s parent company News Corp. In 2002, the company’s Fox Television Stations arm purchased several UPN affiliated stations from Chris-Craft Industries (the former partner of UPN). When The CW deal was announced, Fox let it be known its stations affiliated with UPN would not join the new network; soon after, Fox created a programming service for those stations (and others) called MyNetworkTV. Meanwhile in many cities where UPN and WB had separate affiliates, one of the two stations (usually the strongest in its market) won CW affiliation while the other station was left without a network affiliation at all. Many of those stations signed up with MyNetworkTV; the others became independent (non-network affiliated) local stations or went off the air altogether. When The CW announced its schedule for the fall 2006 season, there were programmes held over from WB (such as ‘7TH Heaven and ‘Gilmore Girls’), others from UPN (‘Everybody Hates Chris’ and ‘Veronica Mars’) and a few brand-new entries, complete with the slogan “Free To Be...”.

UPN officially ended its 11 year run on September 15th, 2006. Two days later, WB signed off with a showing of pilot episodes from four of its signature programmes: ‘Buffy,’ ‘Felicity,’ ‘Angel’ and ‘Dawson’s Creek.’

The CW (which programmed every night of the week except Saturday) officially began broadcasting September 18th, 2006, targeting 18-to-34 year old viewers. As it turned out, most of those viewers turned out to be women. Moreover, one of its two brand-new entries (the drama ‘Runaway’) was an instant flop, while some viewers were still searching for their old WB/UPN stations (which no longer existed). As a result, The CW ended its first season with ratings below what The WB and UPN achieved together in their final year.

For the fall of 2007, The CW eliminated several long-running shows (including WB holdovers ‘7TH Heaven and ‘Gilmore Girls,’ and UPN cult hit ‘Veronica Mars’). It added a number of new dramas, comedies and reality series. But only the teen drama ‘Gossip Girl’ showed some traction; the writer’s strike that affected all networks during the 2007-08 season hit The CW badly. “The Wall Street Journal” reported that CW’s target audience declined by nearly a third compared to the network’s first season; the “Journal” warned “the network's hopes of surviving are looking increasingly bleak”. (CW executives blamed the drop on the way Nielsen Media Research compiled the network’s ratings.)

CW rebooted its line-up for the 2008-09 season by cancelling the long-running ‘Smackdown!’ wrestling series (which went to MyNetworkTV); hiring an outside agency called Media Rights Capital to programme its low-rated Sunday night lineup; and introducing an updated version of the old Fox’s teen soap ‘90210'.

But the Media Rights programmes (‘Valentine;’ ‘Easy Money’ and a pair of reality shows) did so poorly in the ratings, CW quickly terminated its agreement and aired reruns of ‘Everybody Hates Chris,’ ‘The Drew Carey Show’ and the cancelled CBS drama ‘Reaper’ for the remainder of the season. On the bright side, ‘90210' caught on while several other holdover shows (especially ‘Gossip Girl’) saw ratings increase sharply in their core demographic audience. But the Media Rights failure forced The CW to stop programming Sunday nights, starting with the 2009-10 season (the time was given back to affiliates). CW also shut down its comedy development department, while cancelling its two remaining sitcoms–‘Everybody Hates Chris’ and ‘The Game’. It also scheduled yet another Fox drama remake–‘Melrose Place’–and launched the supernatural drama called ‘Vampire Diaries,’ an effort to mimic the success of HBO’s ‘True Blood.’

Time will tell whether The CW can survive as a five-day a week television network.