MyNetworkTV

MyNetworkTV
Founded	September 5, 2006
President	Jack Abernethy
Company	Fox Television Stations
Notable Series	Friday Night SmackDown!

MyNetworkTV is an American television syndication service.

History

MyNetworkTV began operations as a broadcast network on September 5, 2006. It is operated by the Fox Television Stations unit of Fox Corporation. Affiliates are made up of former UPN and The WB stations that were not going to be a part of The CW network, including nine Fox-owned UPN affiliates plus an unaffiliated Fox-owned station in Dallas, TX.

The hour-long dramas Desire and Fashion House were the first two series to be announced for the new network. Both series are English versions of Spanish telenovelas, structured in 65-episode story arcs that are broadcast Monday through Friday for 13 weeks. Initially, 20th Television was developing several other shows for the new network, including Catwalk, Celebrity Love Island, On Scene and America's Brainiest. The network decided to stick with the telenovela format but after two cycles of telenovelas received dismal ratings they reworked their programming strategy away from telenovelas. Their new strategy is to air movies, non-traditional sporting events and cheap original unscripted shows. This originally included weekly broadcasts of International Fight League bouts. Since the network had already produced a large part of the next cycle of telenovelas before introducing this new programming they had the producers wrap them up quickly and aired each of them in a two hour block on only two nights a week. They eventually confined them to one hour each on one night before unceremoniously yanking them from the air before they finished. Two more telenovelas (Friends & Enemies and To Love & Die) that were in the early development stage to air during Summer 2007 were preemptively cancelled.

On February 10, 2009, MyNetworkTV parent News Corporation (later 21st Century Fox) announced that as of this date, MyNetworkTV no longer operates as a traditional broadcast network, but will continue to function as a syndication service carrying off-network reruns from other television studios, such as NBCUniversal's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Saturday nights, previously programmed by the then-network, were turned over to the local MyNetworkTV affiliates as of the Fall 2009 season to program as they wish. Its last original show WWE Smackdown, would leave the network in 2010 and move to SyFy.

In-Depth

• Program Listing: A listing of shows aired on MyNetworkTV.

External Sites

• Official Site
• Offical press release regarding creation
• List of MyNetworkTV affiliates