Will CW (formerly UPN/WB) now have two stations in each market?

.

My small market only has 1 UPN station. No WB.

shawn...

In the case of Atlanta the WB station is owned by Tribune, and the UPN
station is owned by CBS. The UPN station is becoming the CW station in
the fall and WB station will become an independent. Don't know if that
is happening in any other cases, but I wouldn't be surprised.

Sharpe Fan...

In Philadelphia, the Tribune owned WB affiliate will be come an independent
station and the CBS owned UPN station will be the new CW channel.

videonovels...

That would be WB-17 right? Now it will be independent? That's good,
because 17 shows a lot of good independent programming. Always has
dating back to the 1970s.

UPN = 57? I don't watch that channel much. I usually watch
Lancaster's local UPN-15.

Sharpe Fan...

You got them right.

The only thing I watch on 57 is Veronica Mars.

Sharpe Fan

Sharpe Fan

But I know some places like Baltimore have both WB and UPN stations.
Does this new merging mean there will now be two stations in Baltimore,
both broadcasting the same WB/UPN aka CW programming?

Or more likely, will one of the Baltimore stations become an
independent station?

William George Ferguson...

Here's how it will work according to the original announcement of the
merger by CBS, Warner, and Tribune (Tribune is a minority owner in the
WB, the below is, in effect, their buyout).

The Tribune-owned stations that are WB affiliates will get the CW
affiliation for their market. That includes the New York (WPIX), Chicago
(WGN) and Los Angeles (KTLA) current WB stations. The CBS-owned stations

Karen...

This is such a relief to me. I live in central PA and we get the WB station
WPIX from New York, but we have no UPN affiliate. I have never seen
"Veronica Mars," and a number of other UPN shows that look interesting. I
became a Buffy fan by watching FX during the 6th season, only to discover I
could not watch new episodes for more than a year after they originally
aired. When I heard of the merger, I was concerned it might affect getting
WB here, but I didn't think so. It sounds like once the merger occurs, I'll
finally get to see the surviving UPN shows that will be shown on CW, as well
as the WB ones. That will be a definite improvement.

Karen
~~~~~~~
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) -- Walt Whitman

that are UPN affiliates will get the CW affiliations for their market. In
the three markets where there is a CBS owned UPN affiliate and a Tribune
owned WB affiliate, the announcement spelled out which would be the CW
affiliate (2 of them the CBS station, and one the WB station).

David Levy...

There are seven overlap markets (not three). The Tribune-owned WB
station was selected to serve as the CW affiliate in four of these
markets (Boston, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale and New
Orleans). The CBS-owned UPN station was selected in the remaining
three (Philadelphia, Atlanta and Seattle-Tacoma).

In markets where there isn't a CBS or WB owned station to get the
'automatic' affiliation, it will be negotiated with the CW trying to
affiliate with the 'strongest station' (what was meant by 'strongest
station' wasn't spelled out).

videonovels...

"Strong" probably refers to the highest broadcast power. They'd
probably prefer the new UPN/WB aka CW Network be on a 100,000 watt
station rather than a 50,000 watt station w/ limited range.

Barrnabas Collins...

Meaningless around here. UPN 38 and WB56 both have identical
power, identical range. But then that is meaningless in this age
of cable.

.

It will be nice to finally get WB shows like Smallville in my local
area (just 10 miles away), rather than a fuzzy black-n-white picture
from 80 miles away that I can barely see.

One drawback is the local station's Sci-Fi Sunday (featuring SG1, SGA,
Enterprise, Farscape) will disappear off my UPN station... replaced
with WB/CW programming. Oh well. Thanks for the information!

Barry Margolin...

Those are all syndicated reruns, not network offerings.

My guess is that the station will simply relocate them to different
times, they won't disappear.

Barrnabas Collins...

Locally SG1, SGA, Farscape are on our local fox station.

Enterprise on the other hand is on the ABC affiliate. (The same one
that ran ST:TNG all those many years ago.) BTW, who had the bright
idea that the syndication package for Enterprise start with the
Pilot episode and then jump to ahead to episodes from 2005?

Jack Bohn...

Someone who saw the shows that came between the Pilot and 2005?
No, really, is that the broad case, or just locally?

Barrnabas Collins...

I never watched most of the series in the previous runs. I was taking
this opportunity to watch the series from start to finish.

BTW, I would add a station that carries a show in syndicaton this year
may not have the rights to it next year. So even with no CW the
rights for your show may revert to another station.

videonovels...

True. But given the Station Manager over at TV-15 likes
science-fiction, it's unlikely he'll let SG1 or SGA or Farscape go
somewhere else. More likely he'll move it to Saturday night, or 2 am
late-night.

As for combined stations running them, I imagine they paid for
the rights for the next three months or so, they would probably
still want to get some use out of them.

There also seems to be a general divorcement from the Fox owned UPN
affiliates going on, but that hasn't been really strongly established,
except, of course, in the markets where a Fox-UPN station was going
against a Tribune-WB station (among other markets, NY, LA, and Chicago).

Taylor...

Like UPN43 (Raycom) and WB55 in Cleveland. Chances are, it'll go to WUAB
because of their sister station being CBS19 (Raycom).