| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
Paramount had earlier attempted its own television network with the Paramount Television Service. Set to launch in Spring 1978, its programming would have only consisted of one night a week. Thirty "Movies of the Week" would have followed on Saturday nights. When the decision was made to transform Phase Two into , plans for the new Paramount network were scrapped. It is partially from the ashes of the never-aired network that UPN was formed.
UPN was launched January 16, 1995 as the United Paramount Network, a joint venture between two companies: Paramount Studios and Chris-Craft Industries' United Television group. Both companies owned independent stations in several large cities in the United States. Each controlled 50 percent of the network.
In 2000, Paramount's parent company, Viacom, bought out Chris-Craft to gain 100 percent control of the venture, save for some UPN stations that were sold off to FOX Broadcasting , crating some FOX-UPN duopolies in some cities. Shortly afterward, Viacom dropped the "United" name for its new network, opting to change the official corporate name to be the three-letter initials, "UPN."
Although considered a major network by the Nielsen ratings, UPN is not (as of fall 2004) available in all areas of the United States. In some areas, UPN-produced programming is shown at odd hours by affiliates of other networks. Some affiliates have also been known to extensively preempt network programming in order to broadcast local sporting events. These factors have led to the network struggling in the ratings over the past few years, with its flagship series perhaps suffering the most.
The first official UPN network programming was the series . After Voyager's 7-season run came to an end, UPN began broadcasting the newest Star TrekStar Trek collectively refers to six science fiction television series, ten motion pictures, and hundreds of novels, video games, and other works of fiction all set within the same fictional universe created by Gene Roddenberry in the early to mid 1960s. spin-offA spin-off (or spinoff is a new organization or entity formed by a split from a larger one such as a new company formed from a university research group. Spin-offs include a dissenting faction of a membership organization, a sect of a cult, a denomination, . UPN also bought the rights to broadcast the television show Buffy the Vampire SlayerDVD collection Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a U. television series loosely based on the 1992 movie of the same name. It first aired in March 1997 on the Warner Brothers network; after five seasons it transferred to the United Paramount Network ( UPN) for t from 20th Century FoxTwentieth (20th) Century Fox Film Corporation is one of the Big Ten movie studios, located in the Century City area of Los Angeles, California, just west of Beverly Hills. The studio is a subsidiary of News Corporation, the Australian media conglomerate o after The WB cancelled the series.
The network also produced some special programs. For example, they presented the Iron ChefIron Chef is a Japanese television program made by FujiTV. The original Japanese title is Ryori no tetsujin (, Iron men of cookery). It began airing in 1993 as a half-hour show, and was soon expanded to a one-hour format. Each episode presents a culinary USA program during Christmas 2001. UPN also shows the WWE's Smackdown show.
See also: List of programs broadcast by UPN, List of United States television networks
UPN has a new policy of "not picking up other networks' scraps," which was a strong argument when fan pressure was generated in 2004 for them to pick up Angel, the spin-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.