The CW. It doesn’t really have a ring to it.
By now you’ve all probably heard about the huge network merge-a-thon that surprised executives across tinsel town and beyond last week. If you’re between the ages of 18 to 34– pay close attention, your demographic is likely to be the most affected when this mass collide of the previously autonomous WB and UPN is fully underway.
To say that I was surprised at the joining of these two networks completely undermines my supreme sigh-factor at the whole deal, as well as my utter confusion at their inability to come up with a better name than The CW.
I self-propelled myself into a mass of coverage since the combine, all of which talked about how the head-honchos in Hollywood didn’t quite see this one coming despite the downward slope of profit gain coming out of both the UPN and WB camps over the last few years.
You see that’s what this whole situation comes down to; a few suits with a calculator trying to refill their empty sack of cash. Slightly cynical, I suppose, but I’m a bitter television fan who remembers all to clearly what it was like when The WB refused to cough up the loot to keep producing, what was, one of the most defining series of its netlet run, as well as for television during the late nineties.
The Battle for Buffy is what I believe the L.A. Times called it, or something akin to that with the same apocalyptic fight-to-the-death feel. After five seasons of grabbing ratings in the much-fought-over youth market, The WB dropped Buffy (while it was still hot) in 2001 because of expensive licensing costs. UPN swooped in and stole the show, and along with it, started building the same 18 to 34 demographic The WB once had dibs to. What resulted was a split in UPN and WB’s target-audience, causing neither to take great strides to out-do the other in coming years, thus leading to the great network melting pot of 2006.
As a fan of television I was thoroughly irked by the fact that nowhere in the mass of coverage I saw this week, did anyone mention the potential damage to the creativity and quality of television in the face of crude network politics. What happens to shows when home networks refuse to license them after they’ve proven to be establishing hits and are forced to move networks? Well in Buffy’s case, the ratings fell and the show seemed to suffer creatively, separated from its spin-off counterpart. The two eventually did well individually, but Buffy fans can attest to the many could-be plot possibilities sacrificed in those first few years because bad blood (no pun intended) between the networks kept characters from crossing between programs.
What good is a successful franchise of quality television when there can’t be a connection? Buffy and Angel were based in a mythology that lended itself to extended narrative arcs which defined a universe of storytelling possibilities. The ‘art’ of it lost out, when that universe was severed creatively due to the likes of network affairs. But alas, it is in the past and nothing can change that now.
I imagine that the coming together of these two networks may create an opposite effect; a greater palette to which both UPN and WB can provide more diversified programming. At the same time however, I can’t help but worry about the good shows that won’t fit the CW agenda–the ones that will arrest CW’s development plans to become a mass youth-adult oriented TV mogul.
You see this isn’t a battle for Creative Wins, it’s about Cash and Wealth.
