The CW Television Network, or more casually The CW, is a new television network in the United States set to launch for the 2006-07 television season and will also be available in Canada. It will feature a mixture of programming from both UPN and The WB television networks, which will both cease independent operations. The network, which will target younger viewers, is a joint venture between CBS Corporation, owner of UPN, and Warner Bros. Entertainment, a subsidiary of Time Warner, majority owner of The WB.
The "merger" is structured not as a merger in the legal sense but as a new network launching at the same time as two others shut down, The CW was not obligated by existing affiliations with The WB and UPN. It had to negotiate from scratch with individual stations. As a result, in some markets, the CW affiliate will be a different station than either the existing The WB and UPN stations.

In those media markets where there were separate The WB and UPN stations, one local station was left out in the merger.
Media reports speculated that the Fox-owned UPN affiliates would all revert to being independent stations, or else form another network by uniting with the other left-out UPN and The WB affiliates. Fox parent News Corp chose the latter course, and announced MyNetworkTV on February 22, less than a month after CBS and Warner Bros. announced The CW on January 24.

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