Dawson Leery, Buffy Summers and Moesha Mitchell won't ever be able to go home again. And Captain Janeway? She might as well stay lost in the stars.
The WB, which made its name with angsty teen dramas such as Dawson's Creek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and UPN, which blasted off a decade ago with Star Trek: Voyager and then became a reliable home for sitcoms with black casts such as Moesha, will close up shop in September, it was announced Tuesday.
"That's upsetting," said Jenifer Vargo, a Chicago-based non-profit fundraiser who described herself as having grown up on the WB, in general, and Buffy, in particular.
In the biggest shakeup in broadcast network TV in more than 50 years, the WB and UPN will fuse their identities, and presumably many of their current hit shows, to form one new network, the CW--the "C" for CBS Corporation, which owns UPN (as well as CBS); the "W" for Warner Bros. Entertainment, which owns the WB.
"It will clearly be greater than the sum of its parts," Leslie Moonves, president and CEO of CBS Corporation, said in a statement.
The CW is due to launch across 95 percent of the TV nation in the fall. In top markets such as New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, it'll air on stations that are currently WB outlets.
The new network's programming slate was not announced. But nearly a dozen shows rated mentions in the corporate press release, a good sign that they're considered keepers: The WB's Smallville, Gilmore Girls, Supernatural, Reba and Beauty and the Geek; UPN's Everybody Hates Chris, America's Next Top Model, Veronica Mars, Girlfriends and Smackdown.
The CW will be more WB- than UPN-like in scope, airing prime-time shows six nights a week, from Sunday to Friday, and kids shows on Saturday morning.
But the CW will be more UPN- than WB-like in the executive suite, with UPN president Dawn Ostroff serving as the new network's entertainment president.
To the victor goes the spoils: UPN regularly has beaten the WB in the ratings this season.
"It looks like a vote of no confidence from the WB's owners," TV historian Tim Brooks said of the merger.
But CBS apparently wasn't confident that UPN could make a go of it alone, either. For all the buzz over Everybody Hates Chris, the network's overall viewership is slightly down from this season to last (3.4 million compared to 3.5 million).
"Neither one of them by themselves are viable," said veteran media buyer Bill Perkins of UPN and the WB. "Perhaps if you put them together you'll get somewhere."
As it stands, Perkins said he rarely steers clients of his Indianapolis-based Perkins Nichols Media to the local WB and UPN stations. "If you look at the numbers, you pass on them," he said, adding, "unless you need kids."
The new CW, as with the headed for extinction WB and UPN, needs kids. Young adults, even younger than those than coveted by the big four networks (ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox), are expected to be the new network's focus.
Nearly a decade ago, Vargo was one of the twentysomethings lured to the upstart WB by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which debuted on the network in 1997. (The series subsequently moved to UPN in 2001, before ending its run for good there in 2003.)
"When I started watching," Vargo recalled, "I was kind of out of high school, and she [Buffy Summers] was in high school, and I kind of grew up with her."
More than a passing fling, Vargo said she stayed with the WB for Angel, the Buffy spinoff, and Supernatural, the freshman series and "one of my favorite shows."
When asked if the demise of the WB brand made her feel old, Vargo, now 35, was quick to reply: "Yes."
According to Brooks, coauthor of The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows: 1946-Present, CBS and Warners are going a risky route by "throwing away" the WB and UPN's established names and springing the CW on viewers. "[You] start from zero," he said, "there's nothing there."
UPN launched in 1995 with the premiere of Voyager. The WB entered the picture in 1996 with shows such as ABC castoff Sister, Sister and an all-new family drama about a minister and his family. As previously announced, the latter series, 7th Heaven, will conclude its 10-season run in May. As it turns out, the Camdens will have helped seen the WB into the world--and out of it.
To Brooks, UPN will be remembered for its pioneering slate of predominantly black-themed shows: Moesha, Girlfriends, Malcom & Eddie, etc. As for the WB, he said without hesitation: "The frog [former cartoon mascot Michigan J. Frog], probably more than any of the shows."
Come their September cut-off dates, the WB and UPN will become the first broadcast networks to disappear since 1955 when DuMont, the original TV home of Jackie Gleason's "Honeymooners" sketches, folded.
Then as now, said Clarke Ingram, a Pittsburgh radio executive and DuMont buff who has chronicled the history of the lost network on the Web (http://members.aol.com/cingram/television/dumont.htm), "there's only room for so many over-the-air broadcast networks."
Whereas the WB and UPN struggled to breakthrough in the age of satellite TV, DuMont couldn't cut it in the seven channel or less world. It was doomed by a lack of capital, Ingram said, explaining it didn't have the money to compete with powerhouses CBS and NBC or even then-straggler ABC. "It kind of dribbled away," he said.
As a TV observer, Ingram wasn't so much surprised that there was a 51-year gap between fallen networks, as he was surprised that either the WB or UPN didn't fall sooner.
Said Ingram: "I was wondering how long it would take [them] to realize they weren't going to make it."