So, what's with the CW?

If I were more perceptive, perhaps I would have figured out that CBS and Time-Warner were plotting something last week.

It's kind of funny, in a way, that the day after most members of the Television Critics Association returned home from the 13-day press tour, the biggest TV news of the season broke — that, after 11 years of mostly failed operations, CBS is shutting down UPN and Time-Warner is shutting down the WB. And that the two of them will then combine forces to launch the CW network in the fall, combining the best of both.

This is the kind of story that, had it broken last week, would have sent all of us TV critic-types into a frenzy, killing each other as we stampeded toward various network executives for the inside story. (And that would have been fun for those network executives to watch.)

The truth is that I could be about a million times more perceptive than I am and still not have figured this out. But once the rather astonishing news broke, it did eventually dawn on me what I had seen last week.

The people running the WB had lots to say about their future and big plans they had. The person running UPN had very little to say about that network's future and announced virtually no plans at all.

Not coincidentally, UPN Entertainment president Dawn Ostroff will be running the CW; WB chairman Garth Ancier and WB Entertainment president David Janollari will be looking for work.

Ohhhhhh. . . .

Guess we know who was in the loop and who wasn't.

My only regret is that a column I wrote that had yet to be published now will never get in the paper at all. (Which means one more I'll have to write. And I'm lazy.)

To sum it up, I mocked Ancier and Janollari for their bravado in the face of continuing ratings and creative woes at the WB. And summed it up by writing, "Network executives are hired to be fired. Only a few of them retire; most get axed. Janollari and Ancier are currently at the top of Hollywood's endangered-species list."

Wow. It's so rare that I'm actually right.

If only I'd gotten it in the paper before this happened. . . .

IT'S WAY TOO EARLY to even guess about how well the CW will do, but it does make sense to have one "fifth" network instead of two. And, while I have yet to see a lot of quality programming on UPN, CBS chieftain Les Moonves did perform miracles by turning CBS around.