UPN (an acronym form of its full name, United Paramount Network) was a broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995 and closed on September 15, 2006. It was co-owned between the old Viacom and Chris-Craft Industries (which was closed in 2000 after being sold to Fox Television Stations), its ownership was moved to CBS Corporation in 2006. Its closure traced back to an announcement that it would combine with The WB (which similarly launched and closed in the same months as UPN). The replacement was named CW as a reference to the combination of CBS (owner of UPN before its closure) and Warner. For Chris-Craft Industries-owned affiliates, they were replaced by either Fox or MyNetworkTV.
UPN originally used shapes as part of its branding with the order being: A yellow circle with the "U", a blue triangle with the "P" and a red square (with a corner cut out) with the "N". This branding was altered with a silver coloring in 1998. A failed rebranding would have the network use the Paramount mountain (represented by a triangle) with a reduced amount of stars surrounding it. The rebrand instead occurred in 2002 with the UPN text surrounded by a ring and elongated.
Programming and programming blocks[]
For a list of shows produced or broadcast by UPN, visit this page.
Amongst UPN's most popular shows were Star Trek: Voyager, Veronica Mars and Moesha. They had two separate Saturday morning blocks over their existence. The first one was UPN Kids which broadcast shows such as the anthology-style series Incredible Hulk & Friends, Space Strikers and Breaker High. The original block was replaced on September 5, 1999 by
Disney's One Too, which was formed in collaboration with The Walt Disney Company as a spin-off block of Disney's One Saturday Morning (which was broadcast on Disney-owned ABC). Disney's programming block was closed in 2003, after which UPN did not renew additional attempts to reinstate their Saturday morning lineup. Sports programming was seen on the network, although on a smaller scale, they primarily focused on wrestling, as other broadcast networks already had broadcast contracts with the important leagues (NFL, MLB, etc.).
Owned and operated affiliates[]
NOTE: UPN had more affiliates than noted here, only the affiliates that were officially owned by them are included. These are: WUPA, WUTB, WSBK, WWHO, KTXA, KTXH, WNDY, KCOP, WBFS, KMSP, WUPL, WGNT, KPSG, WRBW, KUTP, WPSG, WNPA, KPTV, WLWC, KMAX, KRRT, KBHK, KSTW, WWOR, WDCA, WTVX and KMTW. Similar to Fox and PBS, they didn't own and operate the affiliates with their acronym attached to the call sign (KUPN and WUPN).
