Perfect Marriage

The biggest TV news in some time was announced today: beginning next season UPN and The WB will merge into a single network, dubbed CW (for CBS, which parents UPN, and Warner Bros.). This is likely to make both eternally-struggling mini-networks a lot more powerful and put an end to questions like "what's wrong with UPN's drama development?," "what's wrong with WB's comedy development?" and "which network will die first: UPN or WB?"

It will also make the network TV ratings race a five-network, instead of six-network, game and makes it a very real possibility that sometime soon one of the major three networks could find themself in fifth place in the ratings (or at least key demos). Of course that will take a bit of work from the "upstart" CW network but I think they have the raw materials to do it (including a capable decision maker in UPN's Dawn Ostroff, who will be the new net's entertainment president), and their development is likely to be stronger and richer together than it was separately. And the new network will have much stronger marketing muscle and, most likely, better nationwide carriage. It's like both networks are finally graduating from college.

According to the announcement several shows are pretty much guaranteed to pop up on the new schedule (and there's no surprises among them): Gilmore Girls, Smallville, America's Next Top Model, Beauty and the Geek, Everybody Hates Chris, Veronica Mars, Reba, Girlfriends and WWE Wrestling. WB's 7th Heaven was already calling it quits and the merge could mean the end of the line for struggling WB shows like One Tree Hill and Related, older shows like Charmed and Everwood and nearly all of their comedies. A couple UPN comedies are likely to bite the dust too but that network has less to lose (outside of Veronica they have no dramas on the air besides dead-in-the-water South Beach). It will be interesting to see how the split falls between Warner Bros. and CBS productions.

Here's my take on an obvious CW line-up, although the real schedule is likely to be a bit more creative than this (check out the dream combos on Tuesday and Wednesday):

Sunday
7:00 Charmed
8:00 Everwood
9:00 new reality series

Monday
8:00 Reba
8:30 new comedy series
9:00 Everybody Hates Chris
9:30 Girlfriends

Tuesday
8:00 Gilmore Girls
9:00 Veronica Mars

Wednesday
8:00 America's Next Top Model
9:00 Beauty and the Geek

Thursday
8:00 Smallville
9:00 Supernatural

Friday
8:00 WWE Smackdown