<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>UPN would be out automatically because of Enterprise?<hr></blockquote>
UPN would be out because it is owned by Paramount which "borrowed" certain concepts for DS9, threatened TV stations that wanted to carry both B5 and DS9 and generally did everything possible to kill JMS's series. (Out of the conviction that outer space was their corporate propety, and no one else should be allowed to set a series there.) I can't see them picking up a JMS series set in the B5 universe.
The mere fact that they have Enterprise wouldn't be a hurdle. If Rangers appealed to the same demographic there would be no problem with running two genre shows on the network, even on the same night. It isn't like they could be on opposite each other, so they would hardly be competing. You could, conceivably, get a little synergy going. But I don't think it is going to happen.
The whole point of the Fox network, UPN and the WB was to give the studios an outlet for their TV product beyond the existing "Big Three" broadcast networks and cable. Everyone knew that the FCC limitations of network ownership of shows were going away, which meant that the nets would have less reason to buy their shows from the studios. (They could produce their own programming "in house" - probably for less money - and take the profits from eventual syndication, which currently go to the studios.)
With opportunities at NBC, CBS and ABC about to dry up, the studios created their own networks to have somewhere to air their shows. (Yes there is still some cross-selling between the netlets - Buffy is a Fox production, for instance - but that's usually a food-chain or demographic thing. A Fox production will go to UPN or the WB after Fox itself turns it down, or because the concept doesn't work with Fox's core audience. UPN or the WB will buy a Fox - or Paramount, or Warner Bros. show - if it does fit their target demo, and if all their own pilots suck. /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif)
The WB turned down B5 S5 and Crusade before they were offered to TNT and Sci-Fi. Partly this may have been a demographic thing, but it was also partly because PTEN was a proto-network that WB had invested in at the same time that the WB was on the drawing board. Staffers at the in-house network hated PTEN and everything connected with it, and weren't inclined to take any hand-me-downs from it. I can't say that politics is the reason they weren't interested in the B5 universe (the demographics were definitely an issue) but it may have played a role.
I'm not sure if this attitude still holds at the WB (there is a lot of turn-over in TV, and some of the PTEN-haters may have moved on), and Rangers would probably draw a younger audience than B5, but I still think it would be an extremely unlikely home for the show. WB Television almost certainly pitched it to them, if they thought it had the slightest chance, and since we haven't heard that they've taken it, I would guess that they either passed or that WBT didn't bother asking because they already knew the answer.
Regards,
Joe
