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The History of UPN


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I watched this a few weeks ago. VERY VERY interesting. I never realized all of the pieces of UPN. I know, as a black community, we watched UPN all the time, and was kind of distraught when the network disappeared. I always thought UPN was consistently the 6th place network, but apparently, it traded spots with WB (and sometimes FOX). 

Make sure if you watch this, you block out like a good hour and some change to watch! Hopefully he will do the WB at some point. 

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UPN was basically an over-the-air version of BET (with a few exceptions). Coincidentally, both of them were Viacom properties. I remember when my mother would watch The Parkers, Girlfriends, and America's Next Top Model while the latter was on UPN. It wasn't until recently when I learned that they showed Family Matters reruns. 

 

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I was a baby when UPN was in it's infancy, and by 2003 or 4, I can remember watching several of its shows -- The Parkers, Girlfriemds, Half & Half, One on One, Everybody Hates Chris, All of Us and Eve among it's sitcoms, Veronica Mars and SmackDown. I was very lucky to watch UPN as young as I was, loved the programs it aired when I was able watch (despite my going to bed at 8 outside of summer) and later watch in reruns and always appreciated the racial diversity of it and it's programming.

I was saddened to see it (and The WB) go but did welcome The CW with open arms. But UPN will always have a big place in my television memories.

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UPN's first couple years were really rough. The shows were super low quality and hokey outside "Star Trek Voyager".  I remember being excited when the network came on the air but it helped to ruin the legacy of former independents like WSBK in Boston and WWOR in New Jersey.

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Great video on the network's history! Didn't think too much of UPN or watch it until I caught onto SmackDown! in the mid-2000s.  I left thinking deep about the future of television considering how the internet has had a helping hand in revamping the vast spectrum and outlook of television on a daily, especially for what will be the future of the broadcast networks. Though, to be fair, it's hard to see any of the current 5 disappear, let alone 6 if you want to include MNT, without pissing off local stations or the shows that look to these networks when they don't want to be just another mainstay on Netflix or Hulu.

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  • 1 year later...
On 4/19/2019 at 11:37 AM, Georgie56 said:

UPN was basically an over-the-air version of BET (with a few exceptions). Coincidentally, both of them were Viacom properties. I remember when my mother would watch The Parkers, Girlfriends, and America's Next Top Model while the latter was on UPN. It wasn't until recently when I learned that they showed Family Matters reruns. 

 

I Remember those days, Half and Half, One on One, Moesha, and yes Girlfriends and the Parkers. The black sitcoms were  the only great thing about UPN to me. I wish BET would rerun all those shows , (and others)  instead of their current crap lineup. UPN among it's flaws had waaay more character than My Network Tv— which is basically generic ION television junior.

 

The CW is like a lesser version of the WB to me, which I also miss for nostalgia sake. 

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  • 6 months later...

It was a sad day when The WB and UPN merged to become The CW...

 

I have great memories of watching new Pokemon episodes on Kids' WB after The WB network acquired the broadcast rights to Pokemon after almost a year in first-run syndication on various UPN, Fox and WB network affiliates across the country, plus an independent station in Wichita, Kansas.

 

I remember those weekday afternoons, when I would get home from school (later on, wake up Saturday mornings) in the late 1990s, coming home to turn on the TV to see what new adventures Ash, Pikachu, Misty and Brock were going on next in the Kanto region, discovering, catching, training and battling new Pokemon, meeting new Pokemon gym leaders and battling against their Pokemon.

 

WACY-TV 32, the UPN affiliate in Appleton/Green Bay, Wisconsin carried Pokemon in first-run syndication during their WACKY 32 childrens' block on weekday afternoons until June 2, 1999, when WPXG-TV 14, Suring/Green Bay, Wisconsin's Pax TV owned and operated station was converted to WIWB 14, an affiliate of The WB, branded as "WB 14" and all the WB programming (including Kids' WB and Pokemon) that used to air on WACY-TV UPN 32 during the channel's operation as a secondary WB affiliate since their sign-on in 1995, moved to channel 14, with Pax TV programming still airing overnights when The WB network signed off on channel 14 in Green Bay every night until 2006.

 

The WB network acquired Pokemon around the time "Pokemon: The First Movie" was about hit the movie theaters in Fall 1999 (which also had a memorable Burger King Kids' Meal tie-in, despite the recall of the Pokeball that held each Pokemon toy, which caused suffocation when half of the ball was placed on the face of a small child), at the height of the beginning of the Pokemon craze (which gave us the Nintendo Game Boy games, a trading card game, and of course, the anime). Pokemon is still a beloved video game/trading card game and anime franchise to this day...

 

WIWB 14, now a CW affiliate since 2006, became WCWF 14 in 2010, The CW affiliate for Green Bay, Wisconsin, after the UPN/WB merger and after LIN Media acquired the station from ACME Communications in a "failing station waiver," making WLUK-TV Fox 11 sister station with WCWF 14 and moving into the WLUK-TV 11 studios on Lombardi Avenue in Green Bay, nearly a block east of Lambeau Field. Both WLUK-TV 11 and WCWF 14 are now owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group.

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  • 4 months later...

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