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Articles: WB Network Hopes to Add Older Viewers to Teen Base

Posted by admin on Thursday, July 15, 2004 - 02:39 AM

The WB Network, coming off a ratings slide last season, will shake things up this fall to make sure it "doesn't look the same every hour you turn it on," its top executive said Wednesday.
To that end, the home of "Smallville" and "7th Heaven" is looking to shed its decade-old image as a teen angst network. While its target audience will continue to be people aged 12-34, it will welcome older viewers too, WB Chairman Garth Ancier said. "I think to the degree that we have presented ourselves as just a teenage network, that's a very large mistake on our part," he said during the WB's portion of the summer Television Critics Assn. press tour. The decor in the Century Plaza Hotel ballroom where the session was held signaled the new desire, with such actors as Christine Lahti ("Jack & Bobby") and Gerald McRaney ("Commando Nanny") featured as prominently on billboards as the WB's fresh-faced stars, including Chad Michael Murray ("One Tree Hill") and Matt Long ("Jack & Bobby"). Ancier also reiterated the network's mistake last season of being "a bit late to the party" on reality programming. The WB will try to change that with its upcoming slate of reality projects, which includes "Big Man on Campus" and "Wannabes." "On the other side of the slate, I think we probably got a bit stale as a network, in terms of being a little derivative of the shows we were putting on the air," Ancier said. Ancier admitted that the network "may have crossed the line" with its "American Idol" spoof "Superstar," featuring a lineup of talent-free contestants. The WB's fall schedule will launch between Sept. 12-22.

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