Prime Time for the WB Network

The 8-year-old WB network is, like, growing up.

Ratings for the young network are rising by nearly 20%. Such hit shows as “Smallville,” “Dawson’s Creek,” and “Gilmore Girls” have helped the WB for the first time beat its entrenched elders -- NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox -- among viewers aged 18 to 34 on some nights.

Madison Avenue advertisers, who covet that free-spending demographic, seem to be developing a crush on the WB. For the fall season, the WB commanded the highest ad rate increases--more than 15%--of any broadcast network.

That may be money well spent. This year’s premieres--from the WB’s bedrock “7th Heaven” to its flashy new “Birds of Prey” -- are drawing record audiences, a fact that has not gone unnoticed.

“The WB is off to a terrific start,” acknowledged Jeff Zucker, NBC’s president of entertainment. “They deserve a lot of credit for putting together a terrific schedule.”

The WB isn’t setting out to be a mini-NBC or one of the other Big Boys of the airwaves. The network has no news, no sports, no late-night shows and no stations of its own. It’s sticking to a game plan that has led to the growth spurt: to be a destination network for teens, young women and, increasingly, for men.

After seven years and roughly $700 million in losses, analysts say black ink is in sight. They predict that the WB’s projected $800 million in revenue for the season will cover operating and programming costs, and that the network will have positive cash flow by early next year.

Thomas Weisel Partners media analyst Gordon Hodge said the network’s advantage is its ability to deliver a concentrated group of young, impressionable viewers to advertisers.

“Teens and people in their early 20s, at that time of their lives, are making all sorts of branding decisions,” Hodge said. “They’re going to college, buying soap and other products for the first time and thinking about what cars to buy.”

The network is three-quarters owned by AOL Time Warner Inc. and the rest is held by Tribune Co., which also publishes the Los Angeles Times.

AOL Time Warner executives say the WB is a bright light within the struggling conglomerate’s far-flung media empire. Wall Street analysts say the network has given Warner Bros. Television studios a platform for first-run programming and syndication profits. WB shows occasionally feature songs and artists from the Warner Music Group label. In addition, analysts say, the network has enhanced the value of the 17 Tribune-owned stations that carry WB programming.

“It’s not every day that you create a successful broadcast network in America,” said Jeffrey Bewkes, chairman of AOL Time Warner’s Entertainment and Networks Group. “It has essentially done what it set out to do.”

A significant part of that success has been the network’s quick reflexes.

*

Confident Decisions

A year ago, former NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield and two other producers headed to the WB’s Burbank headquarters -- a cluster of portable buildings on a Warner Bros. back lot -- to pitch a comedy about a 34-year-old man who suddenly returns to the age of 14. Before Littlefield could even leave the parking lot, WB execs were on his cell phone ordering scripts and a pilot for the show, “Do Over.”

“This network knows who they are, and who they want to be and they act on it,” Littlefield said. “The notion is long gone that a single network can be an end-all, be-all to everyone. NBC kind of gave up on younger families. ABC stopped running their TGI Friday family line-up. And the WB was intelligent enough to march right in and say we’re happy to take their audience.”

Nine years ago, the WB had just five employees.

The first was Jamie Kellner, a key architect of the Fox network. At a time when experts doubted there was room for another network, Fox got a toehold with such irreverent and provocative offerings as “The Simpsons” and “Melrose Place.”

It wasn’t long before Fox, as part of a strategy to become a major broadcaster, stole the NFL from CBS. By then, Kellner had left Fox but knew that there was room for yet another network to capitalize on TV’s shifting balance of power.

Cable was filching viewers from the major networks with targeted programming. In 1996, Washington relaxed regulations that had been intended to force networks to buy programming from diverse sources. Now, the networks were allowed to own more of their shows so they could reap more money and better compete with cable outlets.

Kellner’s idea solved a problem for Warner Bros. Although the studio was the largest producer of television programs, it had no network for distribution. The content of Kellner’s WB network would be dictated by the country’s changing demographics and the soft spots of his competitors.

*

Ready for the Boom

Baby boomers had been busy having their own babies, creating a huge bulge in population. The same children who made Walt Disney Co.’s 1994 “Lion King” a mega-sensation would need something to watch at home.

“We knew there was going to be another echo boom,” said Kellner, chairman of Turner Broadcasting System. “Fox was vacating that spot, and we knew that advertisers wanted those younger demographics and would pay a lot of money for them.”

Since his new network did not have enough money to buy its own stations, Kellner recruited some independents, teaming up with Tribune. But Kellner, it turned out, was not the only one with an eye on creating a fifth network.

Before Kellner could unveil his venture, Paramount Television Group and Chris-Craft Industries Inc. announced it had joined forces to create the United Paramount Network. The war was on.

On its side, UPN had the powerful “Star Trek” franchise. The WB had Michigan J. Frog, a crooning vaudeville frog that had been in Warner Bros.’ cartoon vault since 1955. Executives of the WB, mostly refugees from Fox, embraced the frog’s quirky image. They had learned the hard way that a network needed a distinct look and feel, particularly after Fox had fumbled for a few years trying to establish an identity amid its hodgepodge slate of shows.

The network went on the air in January 1995. “Whatever came in the door went on the air,” recalled WB marketing co-president Bob Bibb, one of the WB’s original executives.

But by the network’s second full season, which began in the fall of 1996, the WB had welcomed “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “7th Heaven” and the “Steve Harvey Show.” They would become the network’s first signature shows--even though older advertising executives weren’t eager to sign on.

Network President Jed Petrick, who was then head of ad sales, knew how to get around the problem: He began throwing beer and pizza parties to whip up enthusiasm among the advertising agencies’ younger buyers.

The network’s biggest programming challenge may have been the loss of one of those early hits. When “Buffy” was up for renewal last year, Twentieth Century Fox Television studios demanded $2.3 million per episode to cover production costs. The WB refused to pay more than $1.8 million. Rival UPN swooped in and paid the asking price.

The loss of “Buffy” drove a stake into the WB’s ratings with UPN nudging ahead, finishing the season fifth among all viewers, including the prized 18-to-34 age group. The WB responded by moving a little noticed show into the critical Tuesday night slot to compete head-on with Buffy.

This season, “Gilmore Girls” has been trouncing Buffy, drawing more than a million more viewers an episode. “Now we have a younger show that is performing better and it costs less,” boasted the network’s entertainment president, Jordan Levin, 35.

The creator of “Gilmore Girls,” Amy Sherman-Palladino, said she didn’t even bother pitching the show to the big networks. She had been down that road as one of the original writers for NBC’s “Veronica’s Closet” with Kirstie Alley, which survived just three seasons.

This time, she pitched several ideas to the WB. Her last suggestion was just a throw-away line. “Maybe something about a mother and daughter who are more like friends?”

“We love it,” she recalled the executives saying. “Let’s do that one!”

“That was the first time in my life anything like that ever happened,” she said, contending that other networks probably would have said: “And the mother’s a cop, right? And she’s fleeing from someone and she’s shooting a gun, right?”

Although the network is enjoying its adolescent successes, it still faces growing pains.

*

Gaps in Distribution

For one thing, the network is still trying to fill gaps in its distribution. In the midsection of the country, the WB does not air in some communities. Elsewhere, the network is hard to find because it is not tied to strong stations with easy numbers. Instead, it is lost in the clutter of cable channels.

Media analyst Leland Westerfield said the WB also doesn’t have the leverage of other networks that offer a range of programming, including sports. “They can’t strong-arm advertisers,” he said, by squeezing them out of some categories.

Analysts and network executives say that perhaps the biggest question confronting the WB is how it can change its image as a destination for girls and invite more boys and older viewers to the party.

That strategy is evident in shows such as “Everwood,” which is about a conflict between a father and his 15-year-old, and “Birds of Prey,” which features a superhero theme and attractive actresses.

“I hate it when we’re discounted as a teen network,” said marketing chief Bibb. “But teens are very important, they set new trends.... We love teens because when they fall in love with something, they really fall in love.”