2016 marks our 10th birthday of Joshuaonline , when the site started it wasn't focused on TV and Media we eventually went that direction and refined what we cover and talk about , another thing is our record of early blog posts is missing because of quite bad early days of not understanding how posting works. Anyway, will be taking a look at Television stories that were big over the past 10 years starting with 2006.
If Joshuaonline was around in 1995, first off we would be 20 , we also would be looking at the launch of the WB and and UPN. The Concept of Independent stations , ones that if you were a kid in the 60's-80's were the ones the maybe had those movies , cartoons and sitcoms reruns without those pesky ABC,CBS,NBC clutter. They were places you could watch children's shows on the afternoon and movies and what not in the evening, some even had news at different times.
What time is the Eight PM movie ? Poor announcer ...wait someone hit the wrong button
more after the jump
Around this time between the 60's-80's there was ideas of a fourth network (never will happen) yes, a network that would make the big 3 , CBS , ABC and NBC, have to open their club to a 4th and hopefully this fourth network would make ABC finally pack it in. ( That's a joke) FOX was the most successful of that , they are still on the air as of this writing, FOX had began after buying up Metromedia stations and then having other independent stations join them. This was chipping away at the independent stations , something else was too: Cable. HBO had movies (jerks) and so did AMC. HBO and being able to rent movies or buy them (insert rich person name here) why watch on ole channel 32 with commercials or wait a couple years for the latest movie of 1982 come out when I can watch in 1983 anytime I want? Independent stations were still OK , they had other things, some had sports to benefit from (for now) Plus why watch channel 32 air "Lassie" at 5:30pm when I can watch whatever the heck this new cable thing was doing?
Now back to FOX, they had started off slow but did starting growing and well if someone sees a someone doing well with something and if they think (and have money to) they can do the same thing better well there you go. Also the government changed some rules (we could use this alot in writing TV and Radio topics) there was a set of rules called the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules. Not to get into explaining the whole thing , one thing of importance was that the FCC in the 1970 did not want the networks to have monopoly on television . (Insert your 2016 laughs here) They prevented the networks from owning the programs they made in primetime and also prevented programming being aired by a network (their owned stations ) from airing programming they had any stake in. If these rules were around today: NBC couldn't air Chicago Fire because Universal Television is a corporate relation. (This is alternate history if everything else stated the same) Also CBS owned stations couldn't air Entertainment Tonight ( eeehhh ) because CBS makes the show. This law may be the reason why MTM studios (Marty Tyler Moore) and the Norman Lear stuff was all over the networks more , because they were independent companies. (We may talk more about 70's TV in the future) The rules were relaxed in the 80's , though not removed due to Hollywood lobbies and Ronald Regan (who was an actor before ). The rules were seen as outdated after the rise of FOX (yep ) and cable. All the rules were repealed in 1995. (our source for this)
In 1993-4, when the rules were pretty much sharks without teeth now and would soon be starved off Warner Brothers and Paramount thought hey it would be a good time to jump into some network fun. Warner Brothers , along with Tribune , and Jamie Kellner came together and announced a new network , using Tribune's stations (in turn for 25% ownership of this new network) as their neculus. Tribune had stations in top markets and a national cable feed to help fill the gaps. This network was called the WB which launched on January 11, 1995. Meanwhile Paramount had kind of always wanted a network, they tried in the 40's and 50's they did have a stake in the first fourth TV network, Dumont. While they also were instrumental in helping the 3rd network , ABC, exist some more. Paramount bought some TV stations in the 90's and they found a partner to part own a new project : a network. Chris-Craft industries ,which owned a few stations including in the top 3 markets. They announced their new network , UPN, in 1993 . United Paramount Network, owned by Paramount (later Viacom ) and Chris-Craft (get it ? United) . They launched a few days after the WB in 1995. (We could have done a history of UPN and WB thing )
This brings us to our main 2006 point. On January 24th, 2006 it was announced by CBS and TimeWarner (see things changed ) that they were going to take their respective networks , UPN and The WB shut down them down, and take some programs and "merge" them this new network would by 50% owned by CBS corp and 50% by Time Warner, (Tribune got left out in the cold, but there was a deal for most of their affiliates that were WB to join this network for 10 years) (source)
The WB and UPN had moderate successes and failures but they felt it would be stronger to take the strongest programs, stronger stations (in some areas there was only a UPN or WB station while the other network didn't exist or had to be piped in on cable from a near by market) , and a name . The CW stands for Cbs and Warner Brothers.
this was the first logo .... ermmmm yep
Now in markets were there was a both this meant they had to choose their favorites , or the strongest station. In Tribune markets (except in Philadelphia ,Seattle, Atlanta ) they went with Tribune's WB affiliates , While in Philly and Seattle they went to CBS's UPN station because business politics is fun. In Boston, Miami, and Dallas CBS's UPN stations lost out so that was even , while in other markets CBS owned a UPN station minus the whole Tribune thing CW went there. In other markets it was whoever the network felt was stronger. The whole point was to make a stronger network out of the carnage of UPN and WB left overs. The Network structure was originally the WB's . They were doing Sunday Nights from 5/4c to 10/9c, Weeknights for 2 hours , daytime (formally the kids block ) from 3-5pm (time zone meaning nothing) and the Kids WB children's block. The Network launched in September.
this is logo they later announced and use today.
Now this plan looks good on paper and the first season did alright , not better than UPN or WB but alright . That writers strike (might do a 10 years thing about that ) that affect 2007-08 TV season and this hurt the CW. They killed off their comedy department they also laid off others and un filled some empty jobs. This is a factor in the end of KIDS WB (which you read our whole look back of here) where they sold the time to 4KIDS TV, while the CW was leasing things (Joshuaonline should have bought Tuesdays, darn it) they gave the 5 hour Sunday Nights to Media Rights Captial . CW was their weak night so someone buying their weakest night makes sense... it of course didn't work and they cut the deal in November 2008 (the same year) and replaced it with Drew Carey Show repeats and Jericho . WWE Smackdown (one of the UPN carry-overs) left in 2008 , for My Network TV (more on them later), even though it did well they dropped it because they were going after female viewers ages 18-34. (source) Then again if you are network with ratings problems and might not see 2010 , then you drop something people were watching on your network because it's not part of demographic is well , the wrong decade it's not like 1970's where people still might watch because there's only 6 channels, they can leave you and not come back.
Their demo chasing maybe did pay off anyway , they introduced shows like Gossip Girl ,and 90210. which had buzz and viewers, compared to whatever the heck "Valentine" was. They did give up on Sundays , giving that slot to the affiliates in 2009.
This brings us to around now , they did have a change in action in 2012 . First off , If I wrote in 2007 , that the CW would still be on the air in 2012, I would have called myself crazy. They dropped the whole one demo , everyone else go to CBS or NBC or wherever for your fun instead , for inclusive audience. Arrow came out which had 2 things going for it, it had corporate synergy since DC comics is owned by the parent company , and ratings. They added other genres too instead of just soapy soap stuff , they added "'Who's Line is it anyway?" a revival , Sci fi shows and more.
10 years into's life the network looks much better off than it did back in 2006 or even 2008 that it has more viewers , programs that people are watching, and even one of those shows won an Emmy. "Jane the Virgin" was their first show to do such. Interestingly, a lot of the shows on the network are from CBS or Warner, more so from Warner than CBS. Since it's a digital age they also have delved well into that . CW Seed is an internet platform with original shows, some library stuff .
What about those other stations left in the cold from that "merger" (it wasn't really a merger)? Well FOX owned the Chris-Craft stations for a few years, UPN affiliates in NYC, Chicago, LA, and some others were owned by FOX for 6 years. Their stations were in that group being left out of the CW. ( Tribune which had a relationship with the WB seemed more senese than having another an owner of another network run ...well that wasn't an owner of the CW.. your major affiliates) In February of 2006, about a month after the CW was announced they announced they were launching a new network called My Network TV. Not the best name, but FOX's parent had just bought Myspace , which was hot at the time , and was My everything. Their location stations websites were myfox.... .com . Stations that weren't owned by FOX but maybe were left out of the CW , could instead of becoming independent (because who needs that?) could join FOX's thing. They had a unique strategy that I personally found interesting they were going to bring telenovelas but in English
airing 5 nights a week in strip. The shows were in 3 month cycle and have recaps on the 6th night.
my Network TV, mine you don't touch!
Most networks have different programs each night , though the spanish networks , Univision , for example airs Telenovelas in prime time and airs them in a daily fashion. They also were going after that 18-34 audience the CW was going for, Now the network could have developed this more gone more traditional American soap , if they had to change the telenvoelas anyway , with cut off dates. A comedy running daily could have been fun and interesting where it's plots could run through the whole series in a few months, etc. They debuted in September of 2006, about 2 weeks before the CW. The ratings were alright they would be great if it was cable ,but getting less than a million on broadcast doesn't work well so they dropped the telenovelas in 2007. They really were on some lost track for 2 years of airing anything they could find. They did have one program that helped a little starting in 2008, they picked up the rights to WWE Smakdown , the first night that aired , MY Net(hahhaha ) beat the CW (ironc). In 2009 they found a new focus ...well an old focus they stopped being a network (didn't change the time) and started airing syndicated repeats. Smackdown packed up to Syfy in 2011. Currently they air one of the Law and Order spinoffs (so does everyone else) cable off repeats of The Closer, the biggest thing is they air the Walking Dead from AMC, which is the only thing not in weekend drama syndication.
It's not really a network anymore it's stations can move their programs to other times , for example in Seattle they air My Network TV stuff 12am-2am , some stations air their programs with digi network , like METV sharing the rest of channel space.
2006 was an interesting year in what happened in broadcast TV ,and as of this writing there's not been new networks launched on broadcast TV (well skipping the digital networks) and there may not ever be again. That was the last hurrah for ideas like that , there maybe other things done in a structure. If Joshuaonline had been doing TV talk in 2006 , I don't know what would have been said (we need a time machine) but it would been interesting to write about the new networks and what they were doing. That's our first 10 years article and we hope you will love the rest , though the others might not have so much back story.
Note: Though it seems now , the Tribune company and the CW are in discussion mode to see if they renew or if the CW will have to do something else.
