The WB Television Network, or simply The WB, was a television network in the United States that was launched on January 11, 1995 as a joint venture of Tribune Broadcasting and Warner Bros. As a replacement, on January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment announced plans to launch The CW Television Network in the fall of 2006 and shut down The WB concurrently, indicating that intellectual property rights and compensation was also part of the networks' teething troubles.
The WB shut down on September 17, 2006, followed by the opening of the new CW Network on the following evening. The WB was relaunched as an online network on April 28, 2008 by Warner Bros. The new website allows users to watch former shows of the network.
Much like its competitor UPN, The WB was a reaction primarily to new FCC deregulation of media ownership rules that repealed fin-syn, and partly to the success of the upstart FOX and first-run syndicated programming during the late 1980s and early 1990s such as Baywatch and Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as the erosion in ratings suffered by independent television stations due to the growth of cable television and movie rentals. The WB can also trace its beginnings to the Prime Time Entertainment Network, a joint venture between Warner Bros. and the Chris-Craft Industries group of stations.
PTEN could be seen as the predecessor to both The WB and UPN, as well as the distant ancestor of The CW.