The WB Network is Coming Back as a Website

The Warner Bros. Television Group is bringing the WB network back as an online video site that will feature original programming as well as re-runs of WB classics such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

The WB.com is supposed to target viewers between the age of 16 and 34, and the launch of the website is an attempt to attract the attention of younger viewers who, in the digital age, spread their time between watching television shows as they air, and catching the programs streamed online at their leisure.

For example, The CW’s Gossip Girl found a following online, but failed to pull in ratings for the Network, causing the WB/UPN merger to quit streaming the show’s latest episodes over the Internet. Warner Brother’s new website will attack the issue form the opposite direction.

Producer Josh Schwartz, the writer for The O.C. and Gossip Girl, will be creating a new show for the WB.com, and according to a statement form Warner Brothers, Schwartz’s program "takes viewers to the front of the line and behind the soundboard of a fictional Hollywood rock club."

Gossip Girl will no longer be streamed online

The CW announced that when Gossip Girl returns on Monday, the new episodes will no longer be streamed on their website (CWTV.com).

The first twelve episodes of the season will remain on the site and were originally made available for free a week after their airdate. The show received hundreds of thousands of viewers online which the Network believes poses a threat to the primetime airing of the show, since teens are being conditioned to watch the show online rather then when it is on television.

A CW spokesman said that “While the buzz on the show has remained strong, we decided to have it be that you can only get it on our airwaves. We’ll see if that at all impacts the numbers.”

The show has switched from Wednesday at 9:00PM to Mondays at 8:00PM and because of the WGA strike, tonight will be the first new episode of the show in three months. The new episodes will continue to be available on iTunes where Gossip Girl downloads are ranked among the highest.