One of the still-unanswered questions about the wisdom of combining the old UPN and WB networks is how News Corp. would deal with the loss of UPN affiliation by nine of its Fox-owned stations.
Those stations--which are already in the process of debranding--will become CW stations this fall, and their content will be controlled by CBS and Warner Brothers. Some of the stations affected by the
UPN-WB merger are in major markets, including New York and Los Angeles. "We're looking at unwired network things," News Corp. president Peter Chernin said yesterday. "We're talking to
all of the other stations out there and seeing plans that we can come up with in order to supply those with programming. We'll hopefully be able to announce something in the next several weeks."
According to a report by John M. Higgins in Broadcasting & Cable, Chernin is "not sure" how News Corp. will replace the lost programming at the nine affected stations. It's a real
problem.
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