In the wake of the successful Universal Studios ad hoc syndication package Operation Prime Time, which first featured a miniseries adaptation of John Jakes' novel The Bastard and went on to air several more productions, Paramount had earlier contemplated its own television network with the Paramount Television Service. Other notable UPN programs during the network's existence included The Sentinel, Moesha, Star Trek: Enterprise, WWE SmackDown, America's Next Top Model, Girlfriends, the Moesha spin-off The Parkers, Veronica Mars, Everybody Hates Chris, and Dilbert. UPN was born in 1995. 5) Friends, “The One With The Videotape” UPN Shows. The first telecast, the two-hour pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager, was an auspiciously widely viewed start, having been seen by 21.3 million viewers; however, Voyager would never achieve such viewership levels again, nor would any of the series debuting on UPN's second night of broadcasting survive the season. Silver variant of UPN logo, used from 1997 to 2002. The addition of Disney's One Too reinstated UPN's children's program block to two hours, running on Sunday mornings and weekday afternoons. In 1999, UPN contracted the rights to the network's children's programming lineup to The Walt Disney Company; as a result, the teen-oriented and animated series were replaced with a new block called Disney's One Too, which debuted on September 6, 1999, and featured select programs seen on ABC's Disney's One Saturday Morning lineup (such as Recess and Sabrina: The Animated Series). Shortly afterward, Viacom shortened the network's official name from the "United Paramount Network" to the three-letter initialism, "UPN". WKBD shut down its news department (which was later shared with WWJ-TV) in December 2002, with its 10:00 p.m. newscast continuing to be produced by ABC affiliate WXYZ-TV until its eventual cancellation in 2005. Beverly Hills, 90210 set the template for '90s teen shows. In some areas, UPN programming was shown off-pattern by affiliates of other networks (airing immediately after programming from their primary network on some Fox and WB stations, or during overnight timeslots on major network affiliates) or by otherwise independent stations, such as in the case of KIKU-TV in Honolulu, Hawaii. In its later years, as part of the network's desire to maintain its own identity with its own unique shows, UPN instituted a policy of "not picking up other networks' scraps", which was a strong argument when fan pressure was generated in 2004 for them to pick up Angel, the spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer which had been dropped from The WB. Some Fox stations that declined to carry 4Kids TV passed on that block to an affiliate of UPN or The WB, or an independent station, in order for the Fox affiliate to air general entertainment programming or local newscasts on Saturday mornings (for example, WFLD in Chicago moved the 4Kids TV schedule to co-owned then-UPN affiliate WPWR-TV, while WFLD aired infomercials). be reduced by 30 minutes; McMahon did not agree to the change and the football league folded not long afterward.[38]. Ultimately, the "U" in UPN stood for Chris-Craft subsidiary United Television, which owned the network's two largest stations, WWOR-TV in New York City and KCOP-TV in Los Angeles; the "P" represented Paramount Television, the studio that formed a programming partnership with Chris-Craft to create the network. UPN became part of CBS Corporation, while the new Viacom kept Paramount Pictures among other holdings each company acquired in the deal. In 1997, UPN added two teen-oriented series to the lineup with reruns of the syndicated Sweet Valley High (based on the young adult book series by Francine Pascal) and a new series, Breaker High (which co-starred a then-unknown Ryan Gosling); both shows filled the weekday morning block for the 1997–98 season, while they were also included alongside the animated series on Sunday mornings. What a decade. Space Strikers; Jumanji; Bureau of Alien Detectors; Dilbert; Sonic Underground; ... 90s Cartoons Wiki is a FANDOM TV Community. As a result of the lack of viewership, UPN operated on a loss and had lost $800 million by 2000.[10]. [citation needed]. 90s Cartoons Wiki is a FANDOM TV Community. At the time of UPN's launch, the network's flagship station was Chris-Craft-owned WWOR-TV in Secaucus, New Jersey (which serves the New York City market). [8] The first telecast, the two-hour pilot episode of Star Trek: Voyager, was an auspicious start, with 21.3 million viewers; however, Voyager would never achieve such viewership levels again, nor would any of the series debuting on UPN's second night of broadcasting survive the season. In 1993, Time Warner and Chris-Craft Industries entered into a joint venture to distribute programs via a prime time programming service, the Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN). Paramount, and its eventual parent Viacom (which bought the studio's then-parent, Paramount Communications, in 1994), continued to consider launching their own television network. In contrast, The WB was viewable in 91.66% of all U.S. television homes. In September 2002, Digimon: Digital Monsters moved to UPN from Fox Kids, due to Disney's acquisition of Fox's children's program inventory as well as the Fox Family Channel, which was renamed ABC Family the previous year. History Talk (0) Shows that aired on UPN. Boy Meets World. Incidentally, UPN's successor The CW carried over the Kids' WB Saturday morning lineup from fellow predecessor The WB, resulting in UPN affiliates that joined The CW in September 2006 carrying network-supplied children's programming for the first time since the One Too block ended. Warner Bros. announced plans to launch a similar network, which would become known as The WB, in close proximity to UPN. On October 27, 1993, Paramount and Chris-Craft announced the formation of a new television network, later to be named the United Paramount Network, with initial plans to run two hours of programming in prime time for two nights per week. The new network immediately signed 10-year affiliation agreements with 16 stations affiliated with The WB (out of 19 stations that were affiliated with the network) that were owned by that network's part-owner, the Tribune Company – including stations in the coveted markets of New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago – and 11 UPN stations that were owned by CBS Corporation. Essentially the purpose was to echo others of the past, such as Bewitched.The most popular and successful of these shows was Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which I will get into later in this list.While that show was essentially a Bewitched of the 90s, You Wish, attempted the same, mirroring itself on I Dream of … Further transactions added San Francisco (KPIX-TV and KBHK, the latter of which was traded to Viacom/CBS by Fox Television Stations) and Sacramento (KOVR and KMAX-TV, the former of which was sold to Viacom/CBS by the Sinclair Broadcast Group) to the mix. The United Paramount Network, a.k.a. I watched a lot of Classic 60s TV, like “The Andy Griffith Show,” “Bewitched,” “The Munsters” and “Hogan’s Heroes.” I also watched a lot of Hollywood monster movies. UPN aired only one regular sports event program: the much-hyped XFL in 2001, airing Sunday evening games as part of a package from co-creator and WWE founder Vince McMahon, which also included what was then WWF SmackDown!, and the only time the network carried programming officially outside of weeknights. [13], UPN completed its prime time expansion in the 1998–99 season, with Thursdays and Fridays as the last nights of programming to be added to the network's evening slate. When the network launched in January 1995, UPN automatically gained six affiliates with functioning news departments through Chris-Craft/United Television and Viacom's respective affiliation deals with the network, all of those stations started their news operations as either independent stations or during prior affiliations with other networks: WWOR-TV/Secaucus, New Jersey (New York City), KCOP-TV/Los Angeles, WKBD-TV/Detroit, KPTV/Portland, Oregon, KMSP-TV/Minneapolis and WTOG/Tampa, Florida. Chris-Craft was unable to find a suitable partner and allowed Viacom to buy out its 50% stake in UPN, giving Viacom full contro… In late 1994, Paramount announced the formation of the United Paramount Network. After being passed over by CBS, UPN picked up this show about a high school student in Los Angeles, and it went on to be one of the network's biggest successes. Viacom also proposed a rebranding of UPN into the "Paramount Network", using a prototype logo based on Paramount Pictures' mountain logo, which served as the basis for the "P" triangle in the original UPN logo. UPN. After the network's official closure, UPN's website was redirected to The CW website, and then to CBS's website. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. The Paramount Television Network was launched in 1949, but dissolved in the 1950s. One month later on February 22, Fox announced the formation of MyNetworkTV, a new network that would also debut in September 2006 that would use the company's soon-to-be former UPN affiliates as the nuclei. The UPN affiliate body had fewer news-producing stations in comparison to stations aligned with the Big Three television networks (NBC, ABC and CBS) and considerably fewer than Fox and especially The WB. It was a partner in the DuMont Television Network, and the Paramount Theaters chain, which was spun off from the corporate/studio parent, merged with ABC in a deal that helped cement that network's status as a major network. The new network immediately signed 10-year affiliation agreements with 16 stations affiliated with The WB (out of 19 stations that were affiliated with the network) that were owned by that network's part-owner, the Tribune Company – including stations in the coveted markets of New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago – and 11 UPN stations that were owned by CBS Corporation. And those are just five former UPN and WB shows that would fit nicely on Netflix alongside all the other shows coming to the streaming service. UPN had approximately 143 full-power owned-and-operated or primary affiliate stations in the U.S., and another 65 stations aired some UPN programming as secondary affiliates. October 31, 2018 by Britt Stephens. 21 of 64. In the mid 90s there was resurgence in supernatural based sitcoms on TGIF. UPN shut down on September 15, 2006, with some of its programs moving three days later to The CW – a joint venture between CBS Corporation and Time Warner (majority owner of The WB, itself shutting down two days later).[1]. It ran from 1991 to 1997 before it moved to CBS for one season. In January 1998, the network entered into a deal with Saban Entertainment to program the Sunday morning block (with shows such as The Incredible Hulk, X-Men and Spider-Man joining the lineup).[11][12][13]. Each network emerged in the 20th century’s final years. Under CBS, new shows began to breathe life into the network starting in the fall of 2003 with America's Next Top Model and sitcom All of Us (which was produced by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith), followed up by the fall 2004 premiere of the mystery series Veronica Mars and the fall 2005 premiere of the Chris Rock-produced and narrated sitcom Everybody Hates Chris. The first expansion came with the addition of Wednesday primetime programming in the 1996–1997 season. The network was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries/United Television; Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which produced most of the network's series) turned the network into a joint venture in 1996 after acquiring a 50% stake in the network, and then purchased Chris-Craft's stake in the network in 2000; UPN was spun off to CBS Corporation in December 2005, when CBS and Viacom split up into two separate companies. Of the network's early offerings, only Star Trek: Voyager, Moesha and The Sentinel would last longer than one season. [11][12] Like Fox had done nine years earlier, UPN started with a few nights of programming each week, with additional nights of primetime shows gradually being added over the course of several seasons. With Viacom taking full ownership control of UPN, KCOP-TV and WWOR-TV lost their statuses as O&Os and automatically became affiliates of the network, with the network's largest owned-and-operated station becoming Philadelphia outlet WPSG (now the flagship station of The CW). The first comedy series to debut on UPN were Platypus Man, starring Richard Jeni, and Pig Sty, with both shows airing Monday nights in the 9:00 p.m. hour; both received mixed reviews, and neither lasted long. In several markets, the local UPN affiliate either outsourced news programming to an NBC, ABC or CBS station in the market (either due to insufficient funds or studio space for production of their own newscasts, or in later years after the FCC permitted duopolies in markets with at least eight unique station owners in 2000, the station being operated through a legal duopoly or management agreement with a major network affiliate); other affiliates opted to carry syndicated programming in the hour following UPN's primetime programming lineup. In another parallel, 20th Century Fox (the News Corporation subsidiary behind the Fox network, which was spun off with the company's other entertainment assets to 21st Century Fox in July 2013), like Paramount, had long been a powerhouse in television syndication. The Quick '''Brown Fox''' Jumps Over The ''Lazy Dog''. In January of 1995, The WB and UPN launched, and while neither stuck around, both at least temporarily provided platforms for a number of exciting new shows and talents. WFTC/Minneapolis continued to produce a late evening newscast after Fox Television Stations (which acquired KMSP-TV through the Chris-Craft purchase, and converted it into a Fox O&O) acquired the station from Clear Channel Communications and switched the station to UPN – it was moved to 10:00 p.m. to avoid competing with KMSP's 9:00 p.m. newscast until the WFTC newscast was cancelled in June 2006. That season saw the debut of The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, a sitcom set during the Civil War that centered on a black English nobleman who becomes the valet to Abraham Lincoln; even before its debut, the series was riddled by controversy and protests from several African American activist groups (including the Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP, who picketed outside Paramount Studios one week before the originally scheduled pilot episode) and some advertisers for its perceived lighthearted take on American slavery in the 19th century, protested against the premise of the series. When I was a kid, there was two things I really cared about to escape the real world. Paramount formed the Paramount Stations Group when it purchased the assets of the TVX Broadcast Group, which owned several independent stations in major markets, in 1991. UPN became part of CBS Corporation, while the new Viacom kept Paramount Pictures among other holdings each company acquired in the deal. WWE SmackDown, however, aired in those markets on Tribune's WB stations, including those that would join The CW shortly afterward. The UPN Network is one of those things that people feel one of two ways about. Incidentally, UPN's successor The CW carried over the Kids' WB (now Vortexx) Saturday morning lineup from fellow successor The WB, resulting in UPN affiliates that joined The CW in September 2006 carrying network-supplied children's programming for the first time since the One Too block ended. More than ten black sitcoms come from UPN, TEN. Some of the shows airing on UPN in the ’90s included ... “So Fox eventually sort of turned the corner and stopped featuring black shows. Some Fox stations that declined to run that network's 4Kids TV block passed on the block to an affiliate of UPN or The WB, or an independent station, in order for the Fox affiliate to air general entertainment programming or local newscasts on Saturday mornings (for example, WFLD/Chicago moved the 4Kids TV schedule to co-owned then-UPN affiliate WPWR-TV, while WFLD aired news, and children's programming that fulfilled the Federal Communications Commission's E/I obligations for broadcast stations in place of the 4Kids lineup). [14][15][16][17][18], Six months after the company announced its $36 billion merger with (the original) CBS Corporation, in March 1999, Viacom exercised a contractual clause that would – within a 45-day grace period – force Chris-Craft to either buy Viacom out of UPN, or have the former sell its ownership stake in the network to Viacom. Unlike other networks, UPN gave its affiliates the option of running its weekend children's program block on either Saturdays or Sundays. With the exception of SmackDown, all programs during the network's final three months were reruns. [52][53] This left UPN as one of only two major broadcast networks that did not air a children's programming block, the other being Pax TV, which discontinued its Pax Kids lineup in 2000, before reviving children's programming as Ion Television through the 2007 launch of Qubo. Despite what publicity Desmond received from its controversial topicality, the series suffered from low ratings (with the first episode on October 5, 1998, placing 116th out of 125 programs aired that week on network television) and was cancelled after four episodes. A merger would ultimately come in 2006 with the creation of The CW. Three days later on February 8, Chris-Craft subsequently filed a lawsuit against Viacom in the New York Supreme Court to block the latter's merger with CBS, claiming that a pact signed between the two partners in 1997 had prevented either from owning "any interest, financial or otherwise" in "any competing network," including CBS, for a four-year period through January 2001. Hence the whole Polaroid, caught-in-the-act scenario is a rarity at worst, but it’s immortalized forever in ‘90s TV shows. A few months before, Viacom bought CBS (merging the network's owned-and-operated stations into Viacom's Paramount Stations Group unit), creating duopolies between CBS and UPN stations in Philadelphia (KYW-TV and WPSG), Boston (WBZ-TV and WSBK-TV), Miami (WFOR-TV and WBFS-TV), Dallas–Fort Worth (KTVT and KTXA), Detroit (WWJ-TV and WKBD-TV) and Pittsburgh (KDKA-TV and WNPA). Set to launch in early 1978, it would have run its programming for only one night a week. WNPA/Pittsburgh originally branded itself as "UPN 19", but rebranded itself as "UPN Pittsburgh" soon after the network introduced its second and final logo in September 2002, making it one of the few that had carried both standardization styles. In December 2005, UPN was spun off to CBS Corporation when Viacom split into two separate companies. However, most of the UPN owned-and-operated stations under Viacom/CBS Corporation branded themselves by the network/city conventions (for example, KBHK/San Francisco was branded as "UPN Bay Area," WKBD/Detroit was branded as "UPN Detroit" and WUPL/New Orleans was branded as "UPN New Orleans"). It was about the melodramatic romantic lives of wealthy and popular teenagers who looked like they were 25. This was not unlike the purchase of the Metromedia stations by News Corporation ten years earlier, which were used as the nuclei for Fox. ... Michelle-hosted show that made “Temptation Island look like Washington Week in Review" lasted just six episodes on UPN… [51] Many UPN affiliates at the network's launch were already airing The Disney Afternoon, a block supplied by Disney-owned syndication distributor Buena Vista Television; however, that block would be discontinued in August 1997. Chris-Craft and Paramount/Viacom each owned independent stations in several large and mid-sized U.S. cities, and these stations formed the nuclei of the new network. The 90’s were all that and a bag of chips. See more ideas about teen shows, 90s teen, childhood memories. After the network's official closure, UPN's website was redirected to The CW website, and then to CBS's website. The FOX Network and UPN produced a lot of these shows, bringing to the public a new consciousness of black lives. New shows began to breathe life into the network starting in the fall of 2003 with America's Next Top Model, followed up by the fall 2004 premieres of the sitcom All of Us (which was produced by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith) and the mystery series Veronica Mars, and the Chris Rock-produced and narrated sitcom Everybody Hates Chris in 2005. Thus, for all intents and purposes, its affiliates were still basically independents during the network's early years. Independent stations, even more than network affiliates, were feeling the growing pressure of audience erosion to cable television in the 1980s and 1990s; there were unaffiliated commercial television stations in most of the major television markets, even after the foundation of Fox in 1986. Some affiliates were also known to extensively preempt network programming in order to broadcast local sporting events. Additional resources on North American television, National Association of College Broadcasters, 2006 United States broadcast TV realignment, List of television films produced for UPN, List of United States over-the-air television networks, "THE MEDIA BUSINESS; 2 Would-Be Networks Get Set for Prime Time", "UPN Network Cancels 3 of Its 4 Programs", "VIACOM BUYS 50 PERCENT STAKE IN UPN NETWORK", "Viacom to buy half of UPN: is investing $160 million in fledgling network", "Candy Maker Pulls Its Ads From Controversial Comedy", "300 Protest at Studio Against TV Comedy Set in Slavery Era", "They Vote by Remote: As UPN debuts 'Desmond Pfeiffer,' viewers tune in other channels", "Viacom Makes 2 Offers to BHC on TV Venture", "BHC Sues UPN Partner Viacom Over CBS Deal", "Viacom Buys Chris-Craft's Stake in UPN For $5 Million", "Viacom wins UPN so let the digestion begin", "UPN deal done; Viacom buys out Chris-Craft share", "Media Talk; UPN Will Become Paramount Network", "UPN Network Will Carry On Without Its 'U, "Fox Takeover to Bring Changes to Chicago-Area Television Station", "COMPANY NEWS; NINE Fox-OWNED STATIONS WILL REMAIN UPN AFFILIATES", "Viacom Board Agrees to Split of Company", "UPN and WB to Combine, Forming New TV Network", "News Corp. to launch new mini-network for UPN stations", "UPN kicks off Sundays with extreme football", "WFTC drops newscast at 10; KMSP adds it", "Fox ends MY9 News, will replace it with an interview show", "Criticism continues over WWOR's cancellation of N.J. newscast", Broadcast television networks in the United States, English-language broadcast television networks in the United States, Spanish-language broadcast television networks in the United States, List of local television stations in North America, List of United States stations available in Canada, List of American cable and satellite networks, 1994 United States broadcast TV realignment, List of Canadian television stations available in the United States, BHC Communications/United Television/Chris-Craft Television, Season Finale: The Unexpected Rise and Fall of The WB and UPN, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=UPN&oldid=1002497387, Television channels and stations established in 1995, Television channels and stations disestablished in 2006, Defunct television networks in the United States, 2006 disestablishments in the United States, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from January 2019, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, George Cheeks (CEO, CBS Entertainment Group), This page was last edited on 24 January 2021, at 18:49.