The
return of The WB
Warner
Bros. officially announced the return of The WB yesterday, the former
television network that merged with UPN two year ago to form the CW,
as an online platform delivering WB series like Girlmore Girls,
Everwood, and Smallville, Warner Bros.-produced shows
like Friends and The O.C., as well as new, original
programming. “It is our belief we are in the multiplatform storytelling
business,” Bruce Rosenblum, president of the Warner Bros. TV Group
told Variety,
“no longer in the television business.” The site will start
a beta version next month and then officially launch in August, joining
the likes of Hulu,
Veoh
and Joost
as online, advertising-supported television streaming web destinations.
“We are taking this very seriously,” Rosenblum said. “This
is an important part of where we see television going.”
TheWB.com
will target the 16-34 demographic, similar to the strategy the actual
network used during its eleven year existence. With shows like Dawson’s
Creek, Felicity, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer,
the original WB built a recognizable “identity” for itself
that, while never truly competing ratings-wise with the Big Four networks,
made it the ideal stomping grounds for the type of viewers advertisers
covet. While it is great to see the network’s return, it will
be even more interesting to see how the “new programming”
fits in with both The WB “brand” as well as viewers. Terminator
4 director McG and O.C. creator Josh Schwartz have already
been tapped to produce shows for TheWB.com, with the former contributing
a soap opera entitled Sorority Forever and the later an as-of-yet
untitled series that “takes viewers to the front of the line and
behind the soundboard of a fictional Hollywood rock club.” Schwartz,
of course, already has one successful online series, the CW’s
Gossip Girl, which is a bigger hit on the Internet than it
is over the television airwaves. While NBC Universal has been recently
tapping into the webseries genre for its numerous broadcast channels,
TheWB.com is not looking for crossovers. “This is not an incubator
for cheap programming for cable or broadcast,” Craig Erwich of
Warner Hoizon said. “The Internet is its own medium, and we want
to be respectful of that.” Here’s hoping they are true to
their word.
—Anthony
Letizia (April 29, 2008)
