• by Paul Gough , May 17, 2004

When The WB meets advertisers this morning at a midtown Manhattan hotel, it will already have on the boards one of the more intriguing concepts for a drama in recent years.

Just last week, The WB green-lighted "Jack and Bobby," a coming-of-age story about two brothers growing up today with a single mother in a suburban town. One of those brothers will become president of the United States some day. And while it isn't being pitched as the Kennedys as kids--there's no hint of Boston accents nor Hyannisport, it seems--it's already a show that media buyers and TV critics say could become one of the season's best.

"It sounds interesting, and we know The WB," says Stacey Lynn Koerner of Initiative Media. "It looks beautiful, the way that Dawson's Creek looked beautiful and surprised everybody."

To Susan McClellan of Empower Media Marketing, a Cincinnati agency, "Jack and Bobby" might work as emotion rather than a history lesson for the 18- to 34-year-old crowd.

"Look at it more as teen angst drama, as opposed to something that mirrors history a little bit," McClellan says.

If "Jack and Bobby" is a hit, it will be just what the doctor ordered for The WB. The 10-year-old network that has prided itself on delivering 12- to 34-year-olds in droves has hit a rough patch lately, losing audience and skewing a little older than it used to. Several of its former hits--"Dawson's Creek," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and now, "Angel"--are history. It lost one of its reality shows, "Surreal Life," to VH1. There wasn't a breakout hit last season, and the one tagged last May as the show to watch--"Tarzan and Jane"--quickly fizzled.

"The WB moved away a little bit from their young female audience profile," says Susan Hajny, broadcast research manager at GSD&M. "They still have female-skewing programs, but some of them went a little older, and I think overall that's hurt them. They're struggling to get back to a focus."

In that focus, The WB is hoping for a little magic. It's found it time and again, with such enduring hits as "Seventh Heaven," "Charmed," "Gilmore Girls," "Smallville," and the two-year-old "Everwood." A mid-season replacement, "One Tree Hill," will return for a second season. While The WB is strong in drama, it hasn't done so well in comedy. A Horizon Media study figures that the first seasons of "All About the Andersons" and "Steve Harvey's Big Time" will be their last; "What I Like About You" disappeared in its second season, but it might return on the fall schedule.

"They really need comedies," says Brad Adgate, senior vice president and director of research at Horizon Media in New York.

Adgate says that The WB has developed a look and feel--"you see The WB and you know what it is"--that has focused more on entertainment programs and less on unscripted. That's not likely to change in the next year.

"They're the type of network that we're all pulling for because they've been such great business partners," says Kristi Argyilan, executive vice president and director of media at Hill, Holliday in Boston. She says that The WB has always impressed with smart marketing and an understanding of the marketplace.