The Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN) was an American

television network A television network or television broadcaster is a telecommunications network for distribution of television program content, where a central operation provides programming to many television stations or pay television providers. Until the mid ...

that was operated by the Prime Time Consortium, a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

between the Warner Bros. Domestic Television subsidiary of

Time Warner Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States. It was originally established in 1972 by ...

and

Chris-Craft Industries Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., formerly National Automotive Fibers, Inc., was a publicly held American corporation that was traded on the New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges. In 1962, the company adopted the name of one of its acquisitions, Chri ...

. First launched on January 20, 1993, and operating until 1997, the network mainly aired drama programs aimed at adults between the ages of 18 and 54. At its peak, PTEN's programming was carried on 177 television stations, covering 93% of the country.

History

Origins

At the time of PTEN's founding, co-owner Chris-Craft Industries owned

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity, such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the ea ...

s in several large and mid-sized U.S. cities (among them its two largest stations,

WWOR-TV WWOR-TV (channel 9) is a television station licensed to Secaucus, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area as the flagship of MyNetworkTV. It is owned and operated by Fox Television Stations alongside Fox flagship WNYW ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and KCOP-TV in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

) through its BHC Communications and United Television divisions, which formed the nuclei of the network. PTEN was launched as a potential fifth television network, and was created in reaction to the success of the Fox network (which debuted in October 1986, seven years before PTEN launched) as well as the successes of first-run syndicated programming during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It offered packaged nights of programming to participating television stations, beginning with a two-hour block on Wednesday evenings, with a second block (originally airing on Saturday, before moving to Monday for the 1994-95 season) being added in September 1993. Originally, the station groups involved in the Prime Time Consortium helped finance PTEN's programs; however, that deal was restructured at the beginning of the network's second year. The service sought affiliations with various television stations not affiliated with the

Big Three television networks In the United States, there are three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks — CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (National Broadcasting Company), and ABC (American Broadcasting Company) — that due to their lon ...

. However, close to half of PTEN's initial affiliates were stations that were already affiliated with Fox; as a result, these stations usually scheduled PTEN programming around Fox's then five-night

prime time Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

schedule (although Fox would expand its schedule to seven nights with the addition of programming on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on January 19, 1993, the day before PTEN launched). PTEN launched on January 20, 1993, with two series: the science fiction series '' Time Trax'' and the action drama '' Kung Fu: The Legend Continues''.

Demise

PTEN faced two obstacles created by its parent companies which would affect the network. On November 2, 1993, the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner announced that it would form its own fifth network,

The WB The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. ...

, as a joint venture with the

Tribune Company Tribune Media Company, also known as Tribune Company, was an American multimedia conglomerate headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Through Tribune Broadcasting, Tribune Media was one of the largest television broadcasting companies, owning 39 ...

, Six days earlier, on October 27,

announced the launch of the United Paramount Network ( UPN), in a programming partnership with

Paramount Television The original incarnation of Paramount Television was the name of the television production division of the American film studio Paramount Pictures, that was responsible for the production of Viacom television programs, until it changed its name ...

division of Viacom (which would become part-owner of the network in 1996). As a result, the core Chris-Craft independent stations (as well as those owned by Paramount) would serve as charter stations of the new network; Chris-Craft also chose to pull out of the partnership to focus on operating UPN. The network also faced issues from some PTEN-affiliated stations that took issue with the network's barter split, which gave nine minutes of advertising time per hour to the syndicator, leaving only five minutes for the stations to sell and program locally. PTEN also ran into difficulty when the studio was forced to let stations out of their back-end commitments for several series. PTEN adopted a variable schedule for the 1995-1996 season, for affiliates to schedule around The WB and UPN's programming on the night of their choosing. With Chris-Craft pulling out of the venture, PTEN essentially became a syndication service for its remaining shows, before ceasing operations altogether in 1997. One of the two series that aired during the service's final year of operation, the

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

Babylon 5 ''Babylon 5'' is an American space opera television series created by writer and producer J. Michael Straczynski, under the Babylonian Productions label, in association with Straczynski's Synthetic Worlds Ltd. and Warner Bros. Domestic Tele ...

'', would later be revived by TNT, where it aired for a fifth and final season beginning in 1998.

Programming

Former programming

Series

* ''

'' (February 22, 1993, as a

television film A television film, alternatively known as a television movie, made-for-TV film/movie or TV film/movie, is a feature-length film that is produced and originally distributed by or to a television network, in contrast to theatrical films made for ...

; January 26, 1994October 27, 1997, as a weekly series) * '' Kung Fu: The Legend Continues'' (January 27, 1993January 1, 1997) * '' Pointman'' (January 24, 1994, as a television film; January 26November 27, 1995, as a series) * '' Time Trax'' (January 20, 1993December 3, 1994)

Films and mini-series

* '' The History of Rock 'n' Roll'' (March 6, 1995) 10 hour documentary * '' Island City'' (March 2, 1994) * '' The Wild West'' (March 22–26, 1993)

Affiliates

References

* * * * {{The WB 1993 establishments in the United States 1997 disestablishments in the United States Television channels and stations established in 1993 Television channels and stations disestablished in 1997 Defunct television networks in the United States Television programming blocks in the United States Television syndication distributors Joint ventures Simulcasts