My Network TV - Origins

Origins

See also: 2006 United States broadcast TV realignment

MyNetworkTV arose from the announcement of the CW Television Network, which essentially merged the WB and UPN. As a result of several deals earlier in the decade, Fox Television Stations Group owned several UPN affiliates, including its three largest: WWOR-TV in New York City, KCOP-TV in Los Angeles and WPWR-TV in Chicago. Fox had bought most of them after acquiring most of the television holdings of UPN founding partner Chris-Craft Industries, while WPWR was bought in 2003 from Newsweb Corporation. Despite concerns about UPN's future at the time Fox purchased these three stations, UPN signed three-year affiliation renewals with them in 2003. That agreement's pending expiration, along with some others, in 2006 gave UPN parent CBS Corporation and WB parent Warner Bros. the rare opportunity to merge their respective struggling networks into the CW.

The CW included no Fox-owned stations. In fact, as part of a ten-year affiliation deal with The WB's co-owner, Tribune Broadcasting, the coveted New York, Los Angeles and Chicago affiliations all went to Tribune-owned stations. In response to the announcement, Fox promptly scrubbed all UPN references from its UPN affiliates' logos and promotions and stopped promoting UPN programs altogether. However, in all three cases (especially in the cases of Los Angeles and Chicago), the WB affiliate was the stronger station; CW executives were on record as preferring the "strongest" WB and UPN affiliates.

Media reports speculated that the Fox-owned UPN affiliates would all revert to being independent stations, or else form another network by uniting with the other UPN and The WB affiliates left out of The CW. Fox parent News Corp chose the latter route, and announced MyNetworkTV on February 22, less than a month after CBS and Warner Bros. announced The CW on January 24.