Quote of note:

"The WB was not especially diverse creatively," she said, pointing to the lineup of angst-ridden, virtually all-white teenage-oriented shows that have dominated its programming.

By contrast, UPN grouped a batch of comedies with African-American casts on Mondays, giving it a stronger appeal to black viewers. But it has had more problems than WB in getting high prices for its programs.

WB took in about twice as much money from advertisers during the last upfront sales period.

Not WB Nor UPN
By BILL CARTER

Only two months after announcing the start-up of the CW network — the result of a merger in January of two struggling part-time networks, WB and UPN — executives from CBS and Warner Brothers met with the marketing department of their new entity, expecting to make a radical change.

"We walked into that meeting ready to throw out the name CW," said Barry Meyer, the chairman of Warner Brothers. "We'd gotten so much grief from everybody. What does it mean? What is it?"

Good question. Some people thought CW might stand for "the country western network," said Leslie Moonves, the chairman of the CBS Corporation, who along with Mr. Meyer will oversee the new network. Other people suggested it might be "the conventional wisdom network."

Mr. Moonves explained that the CW name had been thrown together hurriedly because of the rushed nature of the merger last winter. The C came from CBS and the W from Warner Brothers. "And we certainly weren't going to call it the WC network," Mr. Moonves said.

Name aside, the prime purpose for establishing what both Mr. Meyer and Mr. Moonves hope will be a fifth major broadcast network is to ensure that the production studios each company owns, Warner Brothers Television and CBS/Paramount Television, will have a distribution outlet to make long-term assets out of the studios' programs.

One crucial decision that sealed the merger was an agreement that whenever a studio owned by the network's parents gets a show onto CW, the other studio will gain a 50 percent share in it.

But making the network credible to its prime audience of teenagers and young adults is critical to its success, the two executives said, and to do so CW will need to put on the best programs available in the marketplace, not merely ones owned by the parent companies.