What Happened to The WB?

The WB Television Network, better known as The WB, delivered a wealth of programming, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel. But then, it disappeared, and besides the odd half-hearted revival, it’s stayed gone. So, what happened to The WB?

What Happened to The WB & Why

The WB was canceled due to a decline in ratings and was folded into The CW, which gave us shows like Arrow and The Flash.

The WB was launched in 1996 and was Time Warner’s attempt to deliver programming aimed at the 18-34 market. There was a range of shows, from dramas to sitcoms and beyond, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Wayans Bros, Gilmore Girls, Smallville, Angel, Dawson’s Creek, and many more. Supernatural later moved to The CW, but it began life on The WB.

I wouldn’t describe the shows as super wholesome, but every now and again, an episode would have a message, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s cringeworthy “Bad Beer.” And of the shows I’ve seen, any violence tended to have zero or low blood.

Initially, The WB was on one night a week, but that expanded over time, ending up with four nights of programming (via The LA Times). The fact the shows were generally work-safe and, in many cases, family-oriented worked out well for Time Warner. It meant advertisers were more than willing to have their commercials run during The WB’s programs.

These shows weren’t necessarily made by WB, in the same way that Netflix commissions shows today. Dawson’s Creek, for example, was produced by Sony Pictures. However, with The WB, Time Warner had an age-appropriate audience for the shows.

However, as time went on, ratings dropped. Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s first series reached nearly 4 million viewers, and the show continued to pull in viewers, but other shows didn’t fare as well, especially when Buffy wasn’t airing, as Broadcasting + Cable noted,

It wasn’t just that people had stopped tuning in, though. One serious issue was that a huge block of people couldn’t tune in. As then reported by Highbeam, television station WGN dropped the WB, reducing the network’s potential audience by 10 million.

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Faced with dropping viewers, in January of 2006 (via Adweek), Time Warner made the decision to end The WB and fold some of the programming into The CW, a joint venture with CBS, again with a similar 18-34 target audience. Some shows, such as Supernatural and Gilmore Girls survived, but The WB as fans knew it was over.

So, the answer to what happened to The WB is that declining ratings led Time Warner to pull the plug on it.