The L.A. Times blames the collapse of both The WB and UPN on Buffy, basically claiming that the transfer of the show between networks put them both battling for the same segment of the marketplace. (It also notes that the weblets arose because of changes in law to allow networks to own the programming they aired… interesting to note, because Buffy wasn’t owned by either network but rather by competitor Fox.)
(And just to provide a working definition of “slow news day”, they also have an article on the CalTech basketball team, a team which proves that playing smart does not trump playing well.)
I alway found that odd, honestly, even if I saw the politics of how that happens. Anyway, that got me thinking… Fox seems to have benefited the most from being able to own their shows and the DVD market that emerged a decade later. It’s seems like the biggest TV shows to do well on DVD have been Fox/Regency shows (if my memory is working correctly, it might just be that the shows that I own are mostly Fox/Regency).
Certainly, Fox has ben a pretty strong player in the TV DVD market, and that goes hand-in-hand with the youth market they focus on, who are more likely to buy entertainment product. They’ve got all those Seasons of Simpsons, and of Buffy and Angel, they’ve got 24 (the first blatant example of DVD actually saving a series, although not as blatant as the later Fox hit Family Guy (ugh).)
And oh, speaking of which, they will now have direct-to-video Futurama movies!