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The United Paramount Network (1995-2006). Initially owned by boat company Chris-Craft (through subsidiary United Television, hence the "United" in "United Paramount Network"), [[Viacom]] (whose [[Paramount]] Pictures is part of the namesake) bought one-half of the network in 1996, and bought CC's share in 2000. CC's UPN stations were sold to Fox the next year; they later became the nucleus of [[My Network TV]]. During UPN's last nine months of operation it was owned by CBS Corporation (the new name for the original incarnation of Viacom). In September 2006, it merged with [[The WB]] to form [[The CW]], which is owned half by [[CBS]] and half by Warner Bros.
UPN's most popular shows were its flagship shows, from Paramount's flagship franchise -- ''[[Star Trek]]'', in the form of ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' and ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise]]'' (in fact, ''Voyager'' was UPN's first show period). The rest of UPN's lineup [[Your Mileage May Vary|was of varying quality]], but was largely made up of mostly forgettable comedies, action dramas, and various sci-fi shows that, for whatever reason or another, struggled or completely failed to catch on. The main exceptions were ''[[Roswell]]'' and ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'', which the network (ironically, in hindsight) acquired from The WB. There were a good number of other interspersed successes, such as ''[[Veronica Mars]]'', ''[[Moesha]]'', ''[[The Parkers]]'' and ''[[Everybody Hates Chris]]'', the lattermost migrating over to The CW along with another hit, ''[[America's Next Top Model]]''.
Most of UPN's comedies succeeded by targeting an audience that, for decades, had been largely ignored by the major networks -- African-Americans. This led to it getting a reputation of being "the black people's channel" (complete with such backronyms as "the [[Fun
The network had a children's block for its first four years called "UPN Kids", which was known for [[Marvel Comics]] cartoons, a cartoon based on ''[[Jumanji]]'', and cheesy teencoms like ''[[Sweet Valley High]]'' and ''[[Breaker High]]'' (teencom on a [[Cool Boat]]). It was not well-remembered or well-rated, and was purposefully played down in order to not cannibalize the [[Ratings]] of Viacom stablemate [[Nickelodeon]]. By 1999, UPN gave up and let [[Disney]] have the time for "One Too", the last gasp of ''[[The Disney Afternoon]]'' and an extension of [[One Saturday Morning]] which lasted until 2003.
UPN also had the broadcast rights for [[WWE]]'s ''[[WWE Smackdown|SmackDown!]]'' program up until the end. Despite several efforts to [[Screwed
The end of UPN was much more tumultuous for that network than the WB's end, as Fox was angered by being completely left out of the CW mix and CBS deciding that theirs and Tribune's UPN and WB stations would be the foundation of the network, with Fox stations in markets with Tribune and CBS-owned stations never considered at all. Within only hours of the merger announcement every Fox-owned UPN station removed all UPN branding and never showed a UPN promotion again during their local time. Other affiliates were disappointed by UPN deciding to air nothing but repeats and ''Smackdown'' after the end of the TV season (while The WB at least aired some burned off shows to keep the lights on) and left the network by Memorial Day 2006 or later. By the time of UPN's last night on the air the network was just a two-hour straight nightly feed of repeats without any logos or branding.
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