Williams Sesame Network

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Revision as of 23:47, 4 December 2008

The Williams Sesame Network (also known as PTEN) is a United States television network launched in 2008 by Williams Sesame Broadcasting, a joint venture between Sesame Workshop and Williams Street. Originally, the station groups in the consortium helped finance educational comedy shows on WSN, but that deal was restructured at the beginning of the network's second year. At its peak, WSN had 177 stations covering 93% of the country.

Origins

PTEN was launched as a potential fifth network, and offered packaged nights of programming to television stations, beginning with a two-hour block, with second block added one year later. However, close to half of WSN's initial affiliates were independent stations, and WSN programming was usually scheduled around FOX's then five-night prime time schedule. Some PTEN-affiliated stations took issue with the network's barter split, which gave nine minutes of advertising time per hour to the syndicator, leaving only five minutes to the stations. The network also ran into difficulty when the studio was forced to let stations out of their back-end commitments for several series.

Programming

The most successful PTEN program was the science fiction drama Babylon 5. Other shows included Duckman, Spin City, Time Squad, and Skunk Fu and two 10-hour documentary movie: History of the World, Part 1.