Word: wb
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...cable. Instead, the networks exist as funders and aggregators of programming. A Fox or NBC is merely a helpful mnemonic to remind you where to find "Ally McBeal" or "Providence." In some cases, they've reconceived themselves not as broadcasters, but brands: the raison d'etre of The WB, say, is to be your one- stop-shopping source for teenage-witch dramas...
...WB Rival UPN spirits away hit series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Isn't that a stake through the heart...
...executives - like the audience as a whole - should worry about the results of such vertical integration (at Disney-owned ABC, for instance, it's now nearly impossible for a studio to get a show on the air if it's not owned by the parent company). But The WB's whining is a little disingenuous. "Buffy" is a big hit by the standards of a little network. But it's a niche show nonetheless: It would never go to NBC, ABC or CBS, and if it did, those networks, which need a huge tune-in to keep a show afloat...
...also puts in question the future of The WB, whose teen-girl-TV specialty is starting to look, like, *so* 1990s. "Felicity," for instance, is still a reliable, well-drawn charmer, but it never became the phenomenon many were predicting at its hugely hyped 1998 launch. "Dawson's Creek" still pulls audiences, but its aging, self-absorbed characters are getting more whinily irritating by the minute, and it's quickly approaching the "Beverly Hills 90210" everyone's-already-slept-with-everyone-else limit, as Kevin Williamson prepares to send the cast off to whatever suddenly invented fictional college they...
...That's not to say The WB has to abandon its niche approach. MTV has miraculously done that for 20 years. But it's not an easy feat when your audience, like the cast on a high-school drama, turns over and graduates every few years - and sooner or later you hit a ceiling, as The WB already seems to have done. In the short run, it seems to be sticking with youth - one high-profile project for next year is "Smallville," about Superman's teen years - but losing "Buffy" and possibly "Angel" might eventually shake...