While Star Trek Voyager was considered the mainstay of the netlet's first season of programming, by the fall of its second season, UPN (like its netlet brethren, the WB) turned to narrowcasting to build an "urban" audience base-adopting the "black block" program­ ming strategy first utilized by FOX in the early 1990s. By 1996 UPN's primetime lineup (In the House, Mal­ colm and Eddie, Goode Behavior, and Sparks) mirrored the counter-programming strategy used by FOX through the mid-1990s with the multicultural Thursday night lineup of Martin, Living Single, and New York Undercover. UPN President and CEO Dean Valentine (1997-2002) acknowledged that the netlet's early strategy had been "to jumpstart and gain an audience by targeting African Americans." This strategy. introduced by his predecessor, Lucy Salhany (1995-97), had brought a large number of African-American viewers into the UPN fold-and, as Valentine noted, "we are happy to have them." By 2000 UPN's Monday night black comedy block boasted the positivist teen sitcom, Moesha (1996-2001), the second highest rated UPN series behind Voyager; the "movin' on up" domestic comedy and transplant from ABC, The Hughleys (1998-2002); and the decidedly broader mother­ daughter Moesha spin-off, The Parkers ( 1999- ), which has been the highest rated series among the African-American audiences since its premiere.

     UPN, along with the WB, avoided condemnation when Kwesi Mfume, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People president, blasted the networks for offering a 1999-2000 fall lineup that was "a virtual whitewash of programming," and threatened a boycott of network programming, However, the net­ let's niche product has not been unproblematic. As "The African American Television Report," aptly states, over half of the African-American characters seen on network television as series regulars are in sitcoms, with a majority on the upstart netlets, UPN and the WB. Unfortunately, on UPN, those comedies included such short-lived series like the ill-conceived Homeboys from Outer Space, which took minstrelsy into the future, and the Civil War sitcom, The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer, which was taken off the air in response to widespread public outcry. Furthermore, even series developed in the post-1999 era of "new" racial consciousness, like Girlfriends and The Parkers (members of UPN's sitcom class of 1999 and 2000, respectively). seem to lapse into stereotypical representations of hyper-sexualized black women and broad, boisterous comedy.

     Until the 1999-2000 season, UPN's ratings fate was tied to maintaining the viewership for its black situation comedies. For the most part, with the exception of a respectable trekker following for Voyager (and a small but dedicated fan base for the supernaturally tinged cop series, The Sentinel), no other type of programming had established an audience. Thus the netlet's "urban" niche constructed a de facto brand identity-at least temporarily. Since 1996, two of the netlet's programming hours had been dedicated to a brand of  niche  programming that caters to the black audience, a population not being adequately served by the major networks. However, as UPN's programming schedule expanded from three nights (six hours) to five nights (ten hours). the amount of programming time dedicated to black-oriented shows remained unchanged. Valentine maintained that the broadening of the audience was necessary because "any network following a narrowcast is ultimately doomed to failure." Valentine's assertion-that broadcasters have a "social responsibility to court a wider  audience"  and thus "bring America together and unite it"-justified a shift in the netlet's programming paradigm. The implementation of this new, and more expansive approach proved correct the prediction made by A.J. Jacobs in his 1996 article, "Black to the Future": "the  bigger  UPN and the WB get, the whiter they become."

     Fiscal solvency had proven to be as elusive for UPN as creating a brand identity and finding an audience. UPN had lost over $500 million by the time Viacom activated a buy-sell clause in its contract in April of 2000, forcing partner Chris-Craft to sell its half­ interest. When Viacom placed UPN under the umbrella of CBS with Moonves at the helm, there was the expectation that, by combining the networks' management and operations, both the network and the netlet would benefit. Despite the less than amicable departures of UPN president and CEO Dean Valentine, and Paramount Television Group's chairman Kerry Mc­Cluggage, who had overseen UPN programming since its 1995 inception, both Moonves and Viacom President Mel Karmarzin repeatedly mentioned the retention of each media outlet's distinct identity on the air.

     Under Moonves's tutelage, CBS had gone from the "blue-haired" programming of Murder She Wrote and solid numbers with the over-35 crowd to the pinnacle of "cool" reality programming with the Survivor franchise, dramatic hipness with CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, and a decade high rating with the lucrative 18-49 demographic. While Moonves tried to assuage fears that UPN would become CBS2 by assuring that the netlet would retain its own identity, UPN remained a netlet without a unified programming profile with black-oriented sitcom staples in the same lineup as the testosterone-tinged shows.

     Since adding the World Wrestling Federation's WWF Smackdown as the centerpiece of the Thursday night lineup in 1999 and by airing other new and ongoing male-oriented programs-including science fiction-influenced series like netlet mainstay, Voyage,; its prequel successor, Enterprise, and the time travel thriller, Seven Days-VPN continues to offer an alter­ native to netlet rival the WB's teen-centered programming (Dawson's Creek, Felicity and a swath of less successful adolescent dramedies). Despite the fact that the Smackdown deal gave both the fiscal and programming advantage to WWF's Vince McMahon, the initial acquisition expanded the UPN audience base by adding the "boy block" to the "black block." While the WWF-inspired viewer surge bode well for UPN as their overall numbers moved closer to those of the network Big Four, it clearly illustrated how viewer allegiances were usually tied to only one of the five nights of programming-each of which seemed  constructed for a different niche.

     In the new millennium, the netlet continues to broaden its audience base-this time narrowcasting for the female demographic. In 2001 UPN was able to woo Joss Whedon 's teen occult dramedy, Buffy the Vampire Slayer away from the WB by paying more than twice the previous per episode cost (from $1 million per episode to $2.3 million per episode) and by granting the series' creative team greater artistic freedom. Buffy's presence (airing Tuesday) and the addition of Enterprise (airing Wednesday) in the netlet's prime-time lineup undoubtedly contributed to its double-digit jump (25 percent) in the highly coveted 18-34 demographic, and 27 percent with females 18-34.

     As a part of this audience expansion strategy, Moonves's choice of former Lifetime Channel senior programming executive, Dawn Tamofsky-Ostroff, speaks to the netlet's desire to broaden a cross-gender viewer base and bring some sense of consistency to UPN's rather eclectic brand identity. In the spring of 2002, UPN's pursuit of branding was further problematized when Moonves and Tarnofsky-Ostroff allocated or "repurposed" time slots from the netlet's prime-time schedule for airing short-lived CBS­ developed projects (like the occult drama Wolf Lake, and the reality show The Amazing Race). Despite the less than enthusiastic audience response to recycled CBS shows, the CBS-UPN marriage, which does little to brand UPN, continues to provide myriad opportunities for network-netlet programming synergy.

      While the fate of any netlet is relatively uncertain, UPN, as a new adoptee in the vast Viacom fold, under the "protection" of CBS, its network big brother, this netlet without a niche, may end up rounding out the "Big Five."