WB and Rangers

[Cerberus]

Is there any reason why the WB does not pick up "Legend of the Rangers? It seems like a logical match since they own the movie and potential show.

Thanks



Cerberus

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Money. Warner is manily a studio. It produces series in cooperation with TV networks. They want a network to help cover the costs, decrease financial risk and air the series. Warner may have its own networks, but selling something to yourself does not really decrease financial risk. /ubbthreads/images/icons/grin.gif

Perhaps only if the DVD disks would become a huge success would they consider significantly increasing their participation. But taking the whole risk of producing and airing a series is something Warner would be unlikely to do.

 

[Cerberus]

I say this because "Charmed", "7th Heaven", "Gilmore Girls", and a few others all air on my local WB station. They are all WB shows (I believe) and the first runs are on the WB, that is why I am curious.

Thanks,

Cerberus

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

Yes, it does happen. But it requires the show to be sufficiently cheap, or something they consider a certain success. Something they want to cash in on, rather than spreading out risks. Hence I must conclude that Rangers was either not sufficiently cheap, or outside their definition of certain success. The process was doubtlessly also affected by the fact that Sci-Fi Channel had already bought some airing rights for B5 and Crusade.

 

[Cerberus]

good points, thank for the info.

Cerberus

 

[Dave Thomer]

Another thing is, the WB is a separate entity from WB Television Production, and the various arms of WB tend to sometimes keep each other at arm's length. This is particularly an issue in the case of B5-related stuff, because Babylon 5 was once one of the shows on Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN). PTEN was a consortium of TV stations and WB, sort of a proto-network. When the WB network got started, it viewed PTEN as something of a competitor, so even though I'm sure WB Television wouldn't mind selling the show to the WB, if the price were right, I doubt the WB would want to buy it.

I'm not disagreeing that, ideally, WB Television would love to sell the show to a different network. But it's going to have a harder and harder time doing that, because so many networks are looking to become production companies themselves, and own the shows they make. That's part of what caused the holdup with Rangers, and it's part of the reason that WB and UPN got started -- self-defense on the part of the production companies.

Another issue is, really, I doubt that Rangers would be such a great fit for the WB. Although the younger cast does make it a closer fit than, say, Crusade or the original B5 would have been.