Word: warners
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...traditional broadcast networks were relegated to the endangered-species list. Viewers were drifting to cable; industry seers were predicting a future of countless channels and "video on demand"; and ABC, CBS and NBC were fighting to remain relevant. Now it seems everybody wants to get into the network act. Warner's new WB Television Network, which premieres with a weekly two-hour block of sitcoms this Wednesday night, is one of two aspiring "fifth networks" making their debut this month. Next week the United Paramount Network -- a joint | venture by Paramount Television and Chris-Craft Industries, which owns a group...
...Warner and Paramount, the two newest entrants in the network derby, see Fox not as a nemesis but as a network to emulate. Just as Fox did at the outset, each has cobbled together a lineup of affiliates composed largely of independent uhf stations. Like Fox, each is starting modestly, with one or two nights of programming, and plans to expand gradually to additional nights. Moreover, both are trying to reach the same audience that Fox has made its specialty: teens and young adults, particularly males...
...starring teen heartthrob Richard Grieco, to a pair of frenetic Fox- style sitcoms, Platypus Man, in which comedian Richard Jeni plays the oversexed host of a TV cooking show, and Pig Sty, about five twentysomething men who share a New York City apartment. The four sitcoms being introduced by Warner also have the familiar whiff of Fox: former Fox leading men Robert Townsend (Townsend Television) and Shawn and Marlon Wayans (In Living Color) star in broad and unfunny sitcoms, while Unhappily Ever After introduces another crude, dysfunctional family created by Married with Children co- creator Ron Leavitt...
...divided. Start-up costs have been estimated at $300 million apiece, and each network could lose between $50 million and $75 million in the first year alone. Also, unlike Fox, which was able to scoop up relatively strong independent stations in a number of markets when it began, Warner and Paramount have had to settle for the weaker leftovers. Paramount seems in the better position at the outset: it has signed up 96 affiliates (covering 79% of the country), and is promising advertisers an optimistic 7 rating (nearly what Fox now averages in a typical week), largely because of high...
...that it is hit shows that count. "This is a business that's all in the programming and the promotion," he says. "If you make good programs and promote them properly, people will beat your door down." But executives for the other networks downplay any threat posed by the Warner and Paramount ventures, describing them not as networks but as enhanced versions of the syndication outfits that distribute shows like Oprah, Wheel of Fortune and Baywatch to local stations. "What they're about is the evolution of syndication," says Neil Braun, president of the NBC television network. "What Paramount...