Recalling the rise and fall of black shows on UPN

The Undefeated

"By the time 1998 rolled around, black TV shows with black leads telling black stories were no longer as plentiful as they had been earlier in the decade," says Kelley L. Carter. "The Cosby Show aired its last original episode in April 1992. A Different World reached that mark in July 1993 and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air stopped in May 1996. The heyday of black appointment television had faded away. NBC tried to maintain the glory with In The House, starring LL Cool J, who, like Will Smith before him, was banking on an established musical fan base to carry over into his newfound acting career. But after two seasons, the series was canceled in 1996. UPN, which was launched in 1995, was happy to try and pick up both the show and the mantle." UPN tried to copy successful black and multiracial shows on other networks like Living Single, In Living Color, New York Undercover and Martin. "We nicknamed it, ‘You Pick a Negro Network.’ That was the nickname," recalls Debbie Allen, who co-starred with LL Cool J on In the House. "They told us that they were just doing all kinds of black shows. I guess they were trying to follow Fox’s shoes. Fox had become a big TV network, starting black programming, and they were doing the same thing, but they were putting on some really pretty bad shows. And I remember one of my actors from A Different World got cast in the show. She said, ‘Ma, don’t you watch it, don’t you dare watch it! I’m telling you now, don’t you watch it!’" But the period of black programming on UPN didn't last long as the network sought to appeal to white viewers. "If you offer a night, or if you offer a couple of nights of shows filled with black stars who don’t get much play in mainstream Hollywood and were stars of their own shows, then black people will show up and watch. You then have an automatic audience that you can build on,” says NPR TV critic Eric Deggans. “Unfortunately, the way that cycle used to work is that these networks would get their early audience with these shows and then slowly start to focus their broadcast networks away from black viewers. Because they wanted the greater [advertising dollars] that came from shows that appealed to white viewers." By 2006, UPN was shut down and merged with The WB to form The CW, which focused on appealing to young white female viewers.