WB and UPN to merge

[quote name='help1']DOES THIS MEAN IM LOSING A CHANNEL??!!

2 wrongs dont make a right.... 3 lefts do.[/QUOTE]

Awesome! Two crappy channels for the price of one!
 
[quote name='shieryda']Awesome! Two crappy channels for the price of one![/QUOTE]

Hell no, UPN is great for showing The Simpsons and Malcolm in the Middle twice a day... can't complain there. Two King of Queens repeats is a plus in my book, also.

Everybody Hates Chris and WWE Smackdown are decent shows too.

UPN's original programming though... ugh. Aside from Everybody Hates Chris, it sucks.
 
Existing affiliates of each network have no clue if their stations are even going to be around. My friend works at the WB in Albuquerque and he's worried about having a job.
 
Those fuckers better not cancel any shows that i watch. Theres not that many shows i watch on those channels and if they cancel one of them espiciallty in favor of one of those shitty black comedies then im going to be very angry.
 
Ouch, this is going to be painful. Problem is that syndication really depends upon where you live. While I do like UPN back at home since they have King of Queens in syndication and I can at least watch that rather than...ugh...Geraldo at Large, that's pretty much all UPN has. That's it. Save for Everybody Hates Chris my UPN affiliate has nothing interesting in syndication and the UPN material it does have is pretty much unwatchable.

The WB, on the other hand, has a wide variety of quality movies, sports, excellent syndicated titles both in the early evening and late at night, and some semi-decent programming in prime time.

So, in my case, they're going to take absolute garbage and mix it with a decent network. I don't see the outcome being all that good, honestly, unless they pretty much keep most of the WB aspects. But, who knows? At least the original channel that became the WB affiliate didn't lose much in the transition many years ago, save for random 8 year to 15 year-old movies in prime time. Here's hoping the merge won't result in garbage!

Although it will leave yet another empty space in the first 11 channels on the lineup, which I'm sure my cable company will replace with yet another Spanish-language affiliated channel. Not that I don't have anything against those channels (they were perfect when I had to prepare material for AP Spanish) but...lord, we have around nine different variants of local Spanish programming channels, Telemundo, and Univision.
 
[quote name='Vampire Hunter D']No bitch they better not cancel Gilmore Girls. Besides thats the WB's highest rated show.[/QUOTE]


No it isn't. It's been 7th Heaven for a long time. Smallville has been creeping up there though.
 
Nope i just read the other day that while 7th Heaven was #1 its now #2 and is being cancelled cause its costing too much. And even if i am wrong #2 is still very good and the show gathers alot of the age group that advertises like.
 
Here's how it's going to work (I sold TV time for 8 years.).

The WB and UPN only program 2 hours of prime time programming per night. I'm not even sure if either or both of them have 7 nights of programming, I was under the impression they both did 6 nights.

Everything else on those stations are syndicated programming, 22 hours a day. Those programs are purchased by stations and they sell their own advertising. If you're used to 2 Simpsons episodes at 6 or 7, 2 Friends, Maury, Jerry or whatever that part of the schedule will not change. That's local programming not network.

If your area has just one or the other WB/UPN obviously it's going to be better for you. If you have a UPN and WB you'll have a new "CW" (Stupid network name IMHO.) on either the old UPN or WB station. The other station that loses its network affiliation will become a traditional independent station and will probably end up just running movies in prime time.

This is really a good thing for broadcast television. I'm surprised both the WB and UPN survived as 5th and 6th networks as long as they did. I expected this merger or one of them to collapse 5-6 years ago.

I'm going to be very curious to see what fills the major prime time void left by an exiting network.
 
[quote name='mietha']The real question is: Will anyone actually notice?[/QUOTE]

The people who work there will. I still have friends who sell at the local WB and it could really fuck things up for them. Possibly lose their jobs and or lose a ton of pay.
 
Prime time programming is/was roughly 5-10% of what I made in television sales. That's true of any Account Executive.

There are only 5-7 commericials to sell per hour in prime time in network programming. A UPN or WB affiliate probably only has 12-15 commercials for sale each and every night.

An episode of The Simpsons, Seinfeld or Friends has 12-14 commercials for sale in one half hour. Yes, a half hour of The Simpsons has more inventory for a local affiliate than 2 hours of prime time programming.

Your friends aren't going to lose their jobs and if anything they're going to have more inventory to sell and that's the best thing in broadcast sales you can have, more inventory.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Prime time programming is/was roughly 5-10% of what I made in television sales. That's true of any Account Executive.

There are only 5-7 commericials to sell per hour in prime time in network programming. A UPN or WB affiliate probably only has 12-15 commercials for sale each and every night.

An episode of The Simpsons, Seinfeld or Friends has 12-14 commercials for sale in one half hour. Yes, a half hour of The Simpsons has more inventory for a local affiliate than 2 hours of prime time programming.

Your friends aren't going to lose their jobs and if anything they're going to have more inventory to sell and that's the best thing in broadcast sales you can have, more inventory.[/QUOTE]

I have sold tv advertising in the past as well, so I do know something about this. Some of my friends may be losing their jobs because there is talk of having to sell the stations because they may not have a network affiliation. There just isn't a lot of money to be made for an independant station in a city like Madison. They also lose viewers if the station loses its network. Also, I realize the dollars may only be 5-10%, but some advertisers will not do business with them because of the lack of prime network programming, so they lose sales from the prime time programs AND the fringe and access programming. It would be more than 5-10% they would lose. For example an advertiser like Toyota will only buy you if you meet certain ratings requirements and then they buy prime, access and news. Losing the prime lead in will affect the news and access ratings as well.
 
Early/late fringe, prime access is unaffected by this.

In markets like Madison and other mid size markets, say 25-70, it's not going to be hard to replace a 2.something rating. You could run old movies and generate that kind of rating. They did it for 40 years prior to the WB and UPN and independent television stations did fantastic. WPIX, WOR, WGN and WTBS are all prime examples.

I wouldn't be surprised if a UPN or WB station in Madison worked out a deal to get Bucks or Brewers games or picked up the Big 10 basketball or football packages. This is what most independents did in the past, it will still work. Conferences and the NBA, NHL, MLB all want more games over the air on free TV as opposed to cable only. The WB/UPN era killed over the air sports packages, they'll make a comeback.

The ratings minimums set forth by Toyota, Mickey D's, Honda, Lowes, BB etc. don't matter too much. None of their local or spot national buys put bucks into prime time. If they do it's 5-10% of an overall ad buy. If Toyota has a $70K buy for the Madison DMA for 2nd quarter that's only $3,500-7,000 in prime time split amongst the ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, UPN and WB stations. A show like Desperate Housewives is probably going for $700-800 on the Madison ABC affiliate, what does that leave for everyone else?

If I were still an AE or NSM at a station losing my UPN or WB affiliate relationship I wouldn't be sweating this. The coat tails of either network weren't long enough to have a sweeping business effect on the station.

EDIT: Last but not least this opens the door for another netlet. With ABC/Disney and NBC/Universal the possibility exists for one of them to enter a similar partnership with Sony/Columbia Studios.

The outcome of this is going to be favorable for the industry as a whole.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']Early/late fringe, prime access is unaffected by this.

In markets like Madison and other mid size markets, say 25-70, it's not going to be hard to replace a 2.something rating. You could run old movies and generate that kind of rating. They did it for 40 years prior to the WB and UPN and independent television stations did fantastic. WPIX, WOR, WGN and WTBS are all prime examples.

I wouldn't be surprised if a UPN or WB station in Madison worked out a deal to get Bucks or Brewers games or picked up the Big 10 basketball or football packages. This is what most independents did in the past, it will still work. Conferences and the NBA, NHL, MLB all want more games over the air on free TV as opposed to cable only. The WB/UPN era killed over the air sports packages, they'll make a comeback.

The ratings minimums set forth by Toyota, Mickey D's, Honda, Lowes, BB etc. don't matter too much. None of their local or spot national buys put bucks into prime time. If they do it's 5-10% of an overall ad buy. If Toyota has a $70K buy for the Madison DMA for 2nd quarter that's only $3,500-7,000 in prime time split amongst the ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, UPN and WB stations. A show like Desperate Housewives is probably going for $700-800 on the Madison ABC affiliate, what does that leave for everyone else?

If I were still an AE or NSM at a station losing my UPN or WB affiliate relationship I wouldn't be sweating this. The coat tails of either network weren't long enough to have a sweeping business effect on the station.[/QUOTE]

I understand what you are saying, but I think you may be misunderstanding part of what I am saying. It's basically that the loss of prime time will affect otherprograms ratings as well. And actually the WB prime does well here in Madison because of the university, so it does hurt.

No matter what, people are most worried bacuse of the uncertainty. If the local station gets the new networks rights, they are in great shape. If not, there is talk of selling off everything.
 
Ultimately, this will result in a (somewhat) stronger network. It could be problematic for the local affiliates as PAD and Green explained (BTW, good job on that, it was much better than what I was going to do). Also, WB has only been doing 6 nights of original programming and UPN 5 nights so I don't expect them to go beyond 6 for some time.

BTW, for the Smackdown fans, it's leaving UPN at the end of August. This was planned months ago, not as a result of the merger.
 
University students don't get Nielsen surveys and they aren't metered households. Nielsen avoids them like the plague because they screw up every sample they've ever tried. No method they've come up with accurately accounts for college student viewership.

I sold TV in a big college town selling to 18-24 year olds is a non-issue, it just isn't done by affiliates. Either way college students are going to be dumped into the 18-34 or 18-49 demos so their significance is really unimportant.

Madison, according to the research I'm seeing, doesn't even have a UPN affiliate. The WB station there is going to automatically get the CW affiliateship. It's a non-issue.
 
Shows that I watch on WB: Smallville(!) and The Simpsons(!)

Shows that I watch on UPN: (none)

As long as they keep my Smallville going, I'm fine with the merge.
 
[quote name='PittsburghAfterDark']University students don't get Nielsen surveys and they aren't metered households. Nielsen avoids them like the plague because they screw up every sample they've ever tried. No method they've come up with accurately accounts for college student viewership.

I sold TV in a big college town selling to 18-24 year olds is a non-issue, it just isn't done by affiliates. Either way college students are going to be dumped into the 18-34 or 18-49 demos so their significance is really unimportant.

Madison, according to the research I'm seeing, doesn't even have a UPN affiliate. The WB station there is going to automatically get the CW affiliateship. It's a non-issue.[/QUOTE]

Madison does have a UPN affiliate here run by the CBS affiliate. I know the college crowd isn't measured but it doesn't mean you can't use it as a selling method. Plus, students living off campus are measured.


Edit: Oh, and no PPM's here. It's still all done by diary in Madison.
 
Since I get both UPN and WB, I wonder which of the local affiliates will survive. I assume the WB one will.

I remember watchign a C-span panel discussion on the state of television and they had two comedians. Paul Rodrigues and another black comedian which I've never seen before or since. This was right when UPN and WB just started. And the black guy goes, "Let's be honest, WB stands for 'We Be Black,' and UPN means, 'You Pick a nigger.'"

And then Paul Rodregues goes, "At least you have black people on television. The only hispanic on network television is Jimmy Smits. And he's pretending to be an Italian!" (A NYPD Blue reference.)

That's still one of the great all time exchanges on C-Span.

Also, isn't it ironic that both of these networks were really assembled to promote the movies of competing motion picture companies, but now they have to merge to survive on TV.
 
Both channels have fucked up their schedules in the past few weeks here. I loved being able to watch That 70's Show and King of the Hill between 5 and 7 PM on UPN, then an hour of the Simpsons followed by an hour of South Park from 10 PM - 12 AM on WB. Now WB took out an episode of the simpsons, moved south park up half an hour, then put that stupid King of Queens in at 11:30 PM. UPN put Malcolm in the Middle in place of That 70's Show, which I liked it better at the 9 PM slot on WB better and King of the Hill and That 70's Show only get one episode in that 2 hour block. It's a good thing FX plays both of those shows all the damn time or I'd be really pissed.

I could care less about WB's primetime crap and the only things on UPN would be I Hate Chris (bad timeslot for me) and Smackdown.
 
What happened to the weekday afternoon cartoons they used to show on WB? I miss those... even if they sucked...
 
That is really a horrible name for the network, CW. That's going to take some getting used to. I wonder which programs from UPN & WB are going to survive the merger and make it to CW. I'm pretty sure Smallville and Everybody Hates Chris will make it and that's all I really watch on each respective network aside from syndicated programs like the Simpsons and Malcolm.
 
The only thing I watch is Friday Night Smackdown! so as long as they don't screw with that it's all good.

Thank God they didn't call the new network the Paramount Warner Network. PWN. :roll:
 
I can't say I watched either network. I do, however, watch Gilmore Girls... on DVD, though.
 
I'll say it again for the second page. WB and UPN only programmed for primetime, 8P-10P. Anything before or after that was programmed by your local affiliate. Potentially, at least in certain markets, the only that might change will be the shows between 8P-10P. All of the syndicated shows (Friends, Raymond, etc.) will be up to the locals. PAD gave a much more detailed explanation on the first page.

[quote name='GuilewasNK']The only thing I watch is Friday Night Smackdown! so as long as they don't screw with that it's all good.[/QUOTE]

[quote name='neocisco'] BTW, for the Smackdown fans, it's leaving UPN at the end of August. This was planned months ago, not as a result of the merger.[/QUOTE]

Sorry.
 
The name is terrible, and sounds like a bad Internet joke.

The channel, though...it has promise, since both of the networks had plenty of fluff (or outright crap) on the schedule.

As long as they keep Veronica Mars, I'm good. :)
 
Sadly the only thing I watch on either channel (UPN) is WWE smackdown on friday nights. So I don't care as long as I don't lose smackdown.
 
[quote name='Graystone']Sadly the only thing I watch on either channel (UPN) is WWE smackdown on friday nights. So I don't care as long as I don't lose smackdown.[/QUOTE]

Once more, with feeling.

[quote name='neocisco'] BTW, for the Smackdown fans, it's leaving UPN at the end of August. This was planned months ago, not as a result of the merger.[/QUOTE]
 
Let's be honest most of the programming on UPN is complete CRAP with some exceptions, quality and ratingswise: "Everybody Hates Chris", "America's Top Model", "Smackdown" and "Girlfriends"(SCREW ya'll, this was a good show last time I watched it.). The rest of what UPN airs is any interchangeable Black sitcom. WB did a LOT better Black sitcoms when they DID do them in fact part of the reason WB may be in this pickle is they COMPLETELY gave the Black audience over to UPN. I mean WB had "The Steve Harvey Show", "The Jamie Foxx Show" and "The Wayans Brothers" and "Do For Love"(multiracial cast and a GOOD show). I will admit WB is the interchangeable Teen Drama network but they STILL got better ratings than UPN I'm sure and hits even. "Supernatural" interests me and I watched "Charmed" in the early days as well as watched "Popular" throughout. "Gilmore Girls" was funny, "Smallville" isn't bad though WB is really screwing over HDNet on the HD feed they're getting. What else? Oh yeah "Buffy" and "Roswell" started on WB and UPN took them because they won't DEVELOP styled shows like the WB and in desperation buy them to cover completely shitty ratings.
I like the avatar neo.

Also to green how about the Independents do us a favor and carry some Korean Drama or Japanese one's subbed, I'd rather watch those in primetime than some of the shit NBC and CBS peddles out during that time.
My only big question is what's going to happen to the UPN and WB station, the one that goes, we already have one independent and I'd like to see some worthwhile programming, hopefully not Spanish and if so at least subbed.
 
[quote name='Sarang01']Let's be honest most of the programming on UPN is complete CRAP with some exceptions, quality and ratingswise: "Everybody Hates Chris", "America's Top Model", "Smackdown" and "Girlfriends"(SCREW ya'll, this was a good show last time I watched it.). The rest of what UPN airs is any interchangeable Black sitcom. WB did a LOT better Black sitcoms when they DID do them in fact part of the reason WB may be in this pickle is they COMPLETELY gave the Black audience over to UPN. I mean WB had "The Steve Harvey Show", "The Jamie Foxx Show" and "The Wayans Brothers" and "Do For Love"(multiracial cast and a GOOD show). I will admit WB is the interchangeable Teen Drama network but they STILL got better ratings than UPN I'm sure and hits even. "Supernatural" interests me and I watched "Charmed" in the early days as well as watched "Popular" throughout. "Gilmore Girls" was funny, "Smallville" isn't bad though WB is really screwing over HDNet on the HD feed they're getting. What else? Oh yeah "Buffy" and "Roswell" started on WB and UPN took them because they won't DEVELOP styled shows like the WB and in desperation buy them to cover completely shitty ratings.
I like the avatar neo.

Also to green how about the Independents do us a favor and carry some Korean Drama or Japanese one's subbed, I'd rather watch those in primetime than some of the shit NBC and CBS peddles out during that time.
My only big question is what's going to happen to the UPN and WB station, the one that goes, we already have one independent and I'd like to see some worthwhile programming, hopefully not Spanish and if so at least subbed.[/QUOTE]

For the most part UPN only broadcast african american sitcoms on mondays and did have hits like Star Trek Voyager debut there. UPN and the WB were pretty much neck and neck in the ratings for most of their existence, but the WB was always the medias and critics darling. The WB was also profitable as of two or three years ago I believe, so while they were well back in the ratings they were doing fairly well as a business.

I always thought it was strange how UPN and the WB were seen in such different lights when in reality the ratings were a virtual tie with them flip flopping back and forth over the years of their existence.
 
[quote name='greendj27']I always thought it was strange how UPN and the WB were seen in such different lights when in reality the ratings were a virtual tie with them flip flopping back and forth over the years of their existence.[/QUOTE]

I have to disagree w/this part. Everytime I've ever looked at the network rankings (pretty often) UPN has been the cellar dweller just about every single time. If you look at the end-of-season rankings UPN almost always has the bottom 10 shows.
 
[quote name='neocisco']I have to disagree w/this part. Everytime I've ever looked at the network rankings (pretty often) UPN has been the cellar dweller just about every single time. If you look at the end-of-season rankings UPN almost always has the bottom 10 shows.[/QUOTE]

I am talking about average ratings for the network, and shows like Next Top Model, Smackdown, etc can pull those up. Keep in mind that the WB has some real stinkers too. For a long time their ratings on Thursdays were abysmal.

The difference in average rating per week is literally 0.1 ratings points between those two usually during the sweeps periods.
 
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