21 Facts About UPN

In December 2005, UPN was spun off to CBS Corporation when Viacom split into two separate companies.

UPN ceased broadcasting on September 15,2006, with The WB following two days later.

Ultimately, the "U" in UPN stood for Chris-Craft subsidiary United Television, which owned the network's two largest stations, WWOR-TV in New York City and KCOP-TV in Los Angeles; the "P" represented Paramount Television, the studio that formed a programming partnership with Chris-Craft to create the network.

The first expansion of its primetime lineup came with the addition of programming on Wednesday nights on March 6,1996 ; that expansion saw UPN assume the broadcast rights to the Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, which aired its inaugural broadcast on CBS the year before.

UPN ordered 36 sci-fi films to air as part of its weekly movie presentations beginning in 1998; the films were supplied by four production companies, with most of the titles coming from Paramount.

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In 2001, UPN entered into a public bidding war to acquire two series from The WB - Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Roswell - from producing studio 20th Century Fox Television.

UPN eventually outbid The WB for the shows and aired them together on Tuesday nights until Roswell ended its run in 2002; Buffy ended its run the following year.

In January 2002, Viacom President and COO, Mel Karmazin restructured the network, resulting in UPN being taken out of the ownership of Paramount Television, and being placed under the oversight of CBS Television, with CBS President Leslie Moonves being given responsibility for the network.

UPN became part of CBS Corporation, while the new Viacom kept Paramount Pictures among other holdings each company acquired in the deal.

Fox Television Stations' nine UPN affiliates were passed over for affiliations as a result, and two days later, those stations removed all UPN branding from those stations and ceased promotion of the network's programs.

Shortly after the network's closure, UPN's website was redirected to The CW's website, and then to CBS's website.

UPN occasionally acquired series cancelled by the other broadcast networks, including former WB series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Roswell, and former ABC series Clueless and The Hughleys.

The first program that UPN acquired from another network was In the House, which moved to the network from NBC in 1996.

Unlike other networks, UPN gave its affiliates the option of running its weekend children's program block on either Saturdays or Sundays.

In 1999, UPN contracted the rights to the network's children's programming lineup to The Walt Disney Company; as a result, the teen-oriented and animated series were replaced with a new block called Disney's One Too, which debuted on September 6,1999, and featured select programs seen on ABC's Disney's One Saturday Morning lineup .

UPN subsequently chose not to renew its contract with Disney, with the network dropping all children's programming after August 31,2003.

UPN had approximately 143 full-power owned-and-operated or primary affiliate stations in the United States, and another 65 stations aired some UPN programming as secondary affiliates.

In some areas, UPN programming was shown off-pattern by affiliates of other networks or by otherwise independent stations, such as in the case of KIKU-TV in Honolulu, Hawaii.

UPN did have one cable-only affiliate in its station form, WNFM-TV in Fort Myers, Florida, which joined the network in 1998.

Many UPN-affiliated stations followed the same branding scheme .

KMSP's news division success despite UPN affiliation was one of the pushes for Fox Television Stations to acquire United Television overall, then convert KMSP-TV to a Fox owned-and-operated station in Fall 2002.