The Night of Favorites and Farewells

The Night of Favorites and Farewells was a one-time special lineup that aired on The WB on September 17, 2006. It consisted of pilot episodes for some of the network's most popular and longest-running shows. The five-hour block was aired on most affiliates of The CW with the exception of those which had taken affiliation with MyNetworkTV, unless they kept the WB as a secondary affiliation. It served as the WB's last nationally broadcast schedule, as the network officially shut down after the program Dawson's Creek ended to make room for The CW.

Schedule and format

The night began with the announcer, Hal Douglas (who had become the "voice" of The WB for the majority of its history, and would not return as announcer for The CW, but instead moved to ABC), introducing the viewers to the night's schedule, and began with the premiere episode of Felicity.

The schedule of the night was:

• 5:00pm Eastern/4:00pm Central Felicity
• 6:00pm Eastern/5:00pm Central Angel
• 7:00pm Eastern/6:00pm Central Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2 hours)
• 9:00pm Eastern/8:00pm Central Dawson's Creek

Before each show, there was an introduction to the show, followed by the Night logo displayed with the year the show premiered on the bottom. During commercial breaks and after shows during the credits, flashbacks would air that would feature actors and other memorable stars on The WB, usually from stock footage or from commercials and image campaigns the network had. The names and the year when they became big on the network would also appear.

Commercials also included promo spots for each series' TV-on-DVD box sets as well as promo spots given to cable networks broadcasting the shows above in off-network syndication.

Last moments

After the final act of the pilot for Dawson's Creek (and a short commercial break) concludes a last 60-second clip montage aired featuring all of the network's previous stars, ending with this statement:

"For 11 years, you brought us into your homes. We made you smile and tugged at your heart. And now, we say goodbye. From all of us at The WB, thank you."

The last image on The WB was of their former mascot Michigan J. Frog (who was shown as a white silhouette due to the animated character being retired as the network's mascot the year before), taking his hat off and bowing while the words "thank you" are on the screen, thanking the audience for watching the network for the last 11 years. As the image faded out, The WB officially left the airwaves.

The clip montage officially ceased the network's operations, as the studio credits for Dawson's Creek were shown afterwards instead of The WB's standard credits scheme, which had been used on the other pilots that aired during the night.

That evening, after The WB shut down, some affiliates that would join The CW when it launched the following night acknowledged the pending switchover within their newscasts, with most adopting their new CW station brands immediately. New York City affiliate WPIX (channel 11) aired a montage of all of the logos used throughout the station's history leading up to the introduction of its new "CW11" logo before the start of its 10:00 p.m. newscast, while KHCW (channel 39) in Houston aired a retrospective of the station's history during its 9:00 p.m. news. In Dallas, KDAF (channel 33) had retitled its primetime newscast to CW33 News at Nine immediately following the end of WB programming, and featured a video clip of the signage being changed outside the station's studios (however, the old WB33 News at Nine bumper aired upon returning from the first commercial break that night).

Themes and marketing

The WB had limited marketing for this one last program on their network. Commercials mainly aired on the network itself.

Major themes for this program included "Faces you'll always remember", "Names you'll never forget", "The faces that touched our hearts", "The WB says goodbye", "A Network that defined a generation says goodbye." and "Join us one last time". The music playing in all the flashbacks and other promos for this event was "Crawl" by Thisway (which was heard on the network's 1999-2000 campaign).

Viewer reaction and ratings

Over the next few days, there were many discussions about the night on The CW's forums, most of which expressed sadness. The actual Nielsen ratings for the night were low, as it rated a 0.9 household rating and 2 share. The main reason for this primarily lies in certain areas where former WB affiliates became MyNetworkTV affiliates, thus leaving The WB's last two weeks of programming unavailable in the markets whose WB affiliates switched to MyNetworkTV. Overall, the vast majority of WB affiliates moving onto The CW preferred to market their future network instead, leading to low promotion of the last night of the WB, while those stations which had taken neither network had long stopped promoting their network's programming outside of contractual obligations.

See also

• The WB
• The CW
• MyNetworkTV
• 2006 United States broadcast TV realignment