text:
Talk:Hillsborough disaster

"Behaviour of fans" inaccuracy and undue weight
Under the heading "Taylor inquiry: Behaviour of fans", it states "Lord Taylor concluded that the behaviour of Liverpool fans, including accusations of drunkenness, were secondary factors, and said that most fans were: 'not drunk, nor even the worse for drink'. He concluded that this formed an exacerbating factor but that police, seeking to rationalise their loss of control, overestimated the element of drunkenness in the crowd. The report dismissed the theory, put forward by South Yorkshire Police, that fans attempting to gain entry without tickets or with forged tickets were contributing factors." This is the only separate heading in the article which explicitly purports to address the actual behavior of fans, but that it does not do; it only says that they were not drunk, and that forged tickets were not an issue. It says nothing about the behavior of the fans (it is quite possible to misbehave while sober, and while using legitimate tickets). My concern is that that the summation as presented will give undue weight to one report's findings (and given how unreliable assertions were shown to be in parts of all of the reports, that is problematic). For example, under the heading "Before the disaster: Venue" it states "At the time of the disaster, most English football stadiums had high steel fencing between the spectators and the playing field in response to pitch invasions. Hooliganism had affected the sport for some years, and was particularly virulent in England. From 1974, when these security standards were put in place, crushes occurred in several English stadiums." And under the heading "Disaster: Build up" it states "Opposing supporters were segregated, as is common at domestic matches in England...Although Liverpool had more supporters, Nottingham Forest was allocated the larger area, to avoid the approach routes of rival fans crossing." These certainly give a vivid impression that the mis behavior of fans was both well-established and common, and that it actually required structural differences in the way attendees were accommodated (seemingly unique among all spectator sports). So characterizing the "behaviour of fans" as somehow being benign due to the absence of drunkenness or forged tickets, is nonsensical. Either the heading should more accurately reflect the content, or the content should actually address the claim made in the heading. Bricology (talk) 07:26, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The section you refer to is specifically about the Taylor Report so it summarises the findings of that report. We also include the Stuart-Smith scrutiny and the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, summarising what came out of those two as well. It sounds as if you are proposing we introduce a new section analysing the behaviour of the fans in general. Do you really think that would be fair and appropriate in this article? With respect, I suggest that that's a rabbit hole we do not want to go down! Considering there's a separate Taylor Report article that goes into more detail about his findings, we should probably cut this section down anyway, including the removal of the contentious subsection that you refer to (which does seem to stick out like a sore thumb). Rodney Baggins (talk) 09:23, 6 February 2022 (UTC)
 * I certainly agree that the section does not need expanding, in fact the Behaviour section is very succinct about Taylor's main findings. I think Bricology is implying that we should go 'fishing' for behavioural factors that Taylor didn't specifically refute. That isn't how we work. Pincrete (talk) 12:16, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 June 2022
Fans in the stadium were literally crushed to death. EpicBlockClutch (talk) 17:29, 13 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:38, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

January 2024
Re this edit: the sourcing does not say this, nor did the coroner's inquests.  ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 16:24, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes they did. I quote from the following source: "The jury found match commander Ch Supt David Duckenfield was "responsible for manslaughter by gross negligence" due to a breach of his duty of care."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36138337 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.58.205.157 (talk) 12:39, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 April 2024
The first paragraph currently reads: "This resulted in overcrowding of those pens and the crush." It should instead read "This act of gross negligence resulted in overcrowding of those pens and the crush."

That is what the inquest found, as per the source provided above. The previous person (who removed my edit) has not responded to my source. I can only presume he therefore accepts that he was wrong and that there is no further valid objection to this edit. 143.58.205.157 (talk) 01:15, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * WP:DROPTHESTICK. soetermans . ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 04:35, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

 * The WP:LEAD already says "The second coroner's inquests were held from 1 April 2014 to 26 April 2016. They ruled that the supporters were unlawfully killed owing to grossly negligent failures by police and ambulance services to fulfil their duty of care." Anyone with an attention span long enough to read the entire lead rather than just the opening paragraph will come across the phrase "gross negligence".-- ♦Ian Ma c M♦  (talk to me) 10:30, 11 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Interesting. How come you didn't know that then, when you were falsely asserting above that the sourcing did not support my edit?
 * Could that be because you hadn't actually read the full paragraph yourself and thus didn't actually know the full picture?
 * Thus, I think you've just demonstrated my point for me: this critical information needs to be stated up front so that it isn't missed . 143.58.205.157 (talk) 13:42, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Already answered. WP:DROPTHESTICK. Get over it. Move on. Your attitude will get you absolutely nowhere. soetermans . ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 16:33, 12 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hi Soetermans. You like throwing around links to pages (without making an actual argument).  So I've done some reading, and I have a page to throw back at you.  This one:
 * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Status_quo_stonewalling
 * That page perfectly describes you (and IanMacM). The following passages are particularly pertinent.
 * ''"Status quo stonewalling is opposition to a proposed change without (a) stating a substantive rationale based in policy, guidelines and conventions or (b) participating in good faith discussion.
 * Such stonewalling is typified by an insistence on keeping a current version instead of adopting a proposed change – or reverting to the version prior to a disputed change (the status quo) – and avoiding substantive discussion of the issues related to the change while engaging in behavior that is typical of disputes. Such behavior creates the appearance of a real substantive dispute about the change when none (or little) exists.
 * In multiple stalled discussions, proponents of the change are likely to make patient and good faith repeated attempts to discuss the substantive points at issue. Trying different approaches, some posts might get long and repetitive. So another diverting/delaying tactic used at such a point is for the stonewallers to accuse the frustrated proponents of change of too much editing, either in the form of tendentious editing, or battleground mentality, or making TLDR or WP:DE/WP:IDHT posts."''
 * Sorry, but I'm not giving in to your stonewalling. You are wrong.  You and IanMacM both know you're wrong.  That's why you both tried to censor me earlier by removing my comment.  Neither of you have ever produced any substantive rationale as to why my proposed edit should not be allowed. The best you could do was assert that my edit was factually inaccurate.  And when I debunked that, you had nothing. 143.58.205.157 (talk) 19:09, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The article is edit protected. Others disagree with you. Move on. soetermans . ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 19:37, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * And do not change the request again. It has been answered. soetermans . ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 19:38, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your status quo stonewalling. If you wish to contribute something productive to this discussion, feel free to do so. 143.58.205.157 (talk) 05:01, 27 May 2024 (UTC)
 * And do not change the request again. It has been answered. soetermans . ↑↑↓↓←→←→ B A TALK 19:38, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your status quo stonewalling. If you wish to contribute something productive to this discussion, feel free to do so. 143.58.205.157 (talk) 05:01, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

 * This is largely a stylistic decision, it's perfectly normal, and IMO reads well to first say what happened at an event, whether natural or man-made, then to say what caused it and who or what was to blame. 143.58.205.157, you want to turn that on its head and ascribe blame before informing what the blame is for. I agree with the others, this wouldn't be an improvement and is somewhat clumsy English. Pincrete (talk) 05:02, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. The edit request template is intended for minor, noncontroversial edits. As this is now self-evidently not that, this template is not the appropriate venue to request this change. PianoDan (talk) 16:57, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Hillsborough disaster


text:
Ski area

A ski area is the terrain and supporting infrastructure where skiing and other snow sports take place. Such sports include alpine and cross-country skiing, snow boarding, tubing, sledding, etc. Ski areas may stand alone or be part of a ski resort.

Scope of activities
The US Forest Service defines a ski area as: "a site and associated facilities that has been primarily developed for alpine or Nordic skiing and other snow sports, but may also include, in appropriate circumstances, facilities necessary for other seasonal or year-round natural resource-based recreation activities, provided that a preponderance of revenue generated by the ski area derives from the sale of alpine and Nordic ski area passes and lift tickets, revenue from alpine, Nordic, and other snow sport instruction, and gross revenue from ancillary facilities that support alpine or Nordic skiing and other snow sports."

Notable examples
Ski areas can extend over several municipalities (ex: La Plagne in France, Alta Badia in Italy, etc.) or several countries (ex: Portes du Soleil in France and Switzerland). A municipality can have several ski areas (ex: Chamonix-Mont-Blanc in France, Davos in Switzerland, Kitzbühel in Austria, etc.). The largest ski areas connect several ski resorts (ex: Les Trois Vallées in France).

Business models
Alpine ski areas require substantial capital investment, a significant labor force, and maintenance of an infrastructure that provides dining and retail services to skiers and that assures reliable snow that is appealing to skiers in locations that are accessible to them. Consequently, they require a fee structure and ancillary attractions that provide the revenue to sustain them economically. The natural settings of ski areas require the management of their environmental impacts, according to legal standards. The profession of ski area management requires specialized training in degree programs. Specialities include the maintenance of the lift and trail infrastructure and the management of the supporting commercial enterprises that rent and sell skis and that provide food services.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Ski area


text:
Large Binocular Telescope

The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT) is an optical telescope for astronomy located on 10700 ft Mount Graham, in the Pinaleno Mountains of southeastern Arizona, United States. It is a part of the Mount Graham International Observatory.

When using both 8.4 m (330 inch) wide mirrors, with centres 14.4 m apart, the LBT has the same light-gathering ability as an 11.8 m (464 inch) wide single circular telescope and the resolution of a 22.8 m (897 inch) wide one.

The LBT mirrors individually are the joint second-largest optical telescope in continental North America, next to the Hobby–Eberly Telescope in West Texas. It has the largest monolithic, or non-segmented, mirror in an optical telescope.

Strehl ratios of 60–90% in the infrared H band and 95% in the infrared M band have been achieved by the LBT.

Project
The LBT was originally named the "Columbus Project." It is a joint project of these members: the Italian astronomical community represented by the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, the University of Arizona, University of Minnesota, University of Notre Dame, University of Virginia, the LBT Beteiligungsgesellschaft in Germany (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Landessternwarte in Heidelberg, Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Munich and Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn); Ohio State University; and the Research Corporation for Science Advancement based in Tucson, Arizona, USA. The cost was around 100 million Euro.

The telescope design has two 8.4 m (330 inch) mirrors mounted on a common base, hence the name "binocular." LBT takes advantage of active and adaptive optics, provided by Arcetri Observatory. The collecting area is two 8.4 meter aperture mirrors, which works out to about 111 m2 combined. This area is equivalent to an 11.8 m circular aperture, which would be greater than any other single telescope, but it is not comparable in many respects since the light is collected at a lower diffraction limit and is not combined in the same way. Also, an interferometric mode will be available, with a maximum baseline of 22.8 m for aperture synthesis imaging observations and a baseline of 15 m for nulling interferometry. This feature is along one axis with the LBTI instrument at wavelengths of 2.9–13 micrometres, which is the near infrared.

The telescope was designed by a group of Italian firms, and assembled by Ansaldo in its Milanese plant.

Mountain controversy

The choice of location sparked considerable local controversy, both from the San Carlos Apache Tribe, who view the mountain as sacred, and from environmentalists who contended that the observatory would cause the demise of an endangered subspecies of the American red squirrel, the Mount Graham red squirrel. Environmentalists and members of the tribe filed some forty lawsuits – eight of which went before a federal appeals court – but the project ultimately prevailed after an act of the United States Congress.

The telescope and mountain observatory survived two major forest fires in thirteen years, the more recent in the summer of 2017. Likewise the squirrels continue to survive. Some experts now believe their numbers fluctuate dependent upon nut harvest without regard to the observatory.

First light
The telescope was dedicated in October 2004 and saw first light with a single primary mirror on October 12, 2005, which viewed NGC 891. The second primary mirror was installed in January 2006 and became fully operational in January 2008. The first light with the second primary mirror was on September 18, 2006, and for the first and second together it was on January 11–12, 2008.

The first binocular light images show three false-color renditions of the spiral galaxy NGC 2770. The galaxy is 88 million light years from the Milky Way galaxy, a relatively close neighbor. The galaxy has a flat disk of stars and glowing gas tipped slightly toward Earth's line of sight.

The first image taken combined ultraviolet and green light, and emphasizes the clumpy regions of newly formed hot stars in the spiral arms. The second image combined two deep red colors to highlight the smoother distribution of older, cooler stars. The third image was a composite of ultraviolet, green and deep red light and shows the detailed structure of hot, moderate and cool stars in the galaxy. The cameras and images were produced by the Large Binocular Camera team, led by Emanuele Giallongo at the Rome Astrophysical Observatory.

In binocular aperture synthesis mode LBT has a light-collecting area of 111 m2, equivalent to a single primary mirror 11.8 m in diameter, and will combine light to produce the image sharpness equivalent to a single 22.8 m telescope. However, this requires a beam combiner that was tested in 2008, but has not been a part of regular operations. It can take images with one side at 8.4 m aperture, or take two images of the same object using different instruments on each side of the telescope.

Adaptive optics
In the summer of 2010, the "First Light Adaptive Optics" (FLAO) – an adaptive optics system with a deformable secondary mirror rather than correcting atmospheric distortion further downstream in the optics – was inaugurated. Using one 8.4 m side, it surpassed Hubble sharpness (at certain light wavelengths), achieving a Strehl ratio of 60–80% rather than the 20–30% of older adaptive optic systems, or the 1% typically achieved without adaptive optics for telescopes of this size. Adaptive optics at a telescope's secondary (M2) was previously tested at MMT Observatory by the Arcetri Observatory and University of Arizona team.

In the media
The telescope has made appearances on an episode of the Discovery Channel TV show Really Big Things, National Geographic Channel Big, Bigger, Biggest, and the BBC program The Sky At Night. The BBC Radio 4 radio documentary The New Galileos covered the LBT and the James Webb Space Telescope.

Discoveries and observations
LBT, with the XMM-Newton, was used to discover the galaxy cluster 2XMM J083026+524133 in 2008, over 7 billion light years away from Earth. In 2007 the LBT detected a 26th magnitude afterglow from the gamma ray burst GRB 070125.

In 2017, LBT observed the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, an uncrewed asteroid sample return spacecraft, in space while it was en route.

Instruments
Some current or planned LBT telescope instruments:
 * LBC – optical and near ultraviolet wide field prime focus cameras. One is optimized for the blue part of the optical spectrum and one for the red. (Both cameras operational)
 * PEPSI – A high resolution and very high-resolution optical spectrograph and imaging polarimeter at the combined focus. (In development)
 * MODS – two optical multi object and longslit spectrographs plus imagers. Capable of running in a single mirror or binocular mode. (MODS1 operational – MODS2 in integration on the mountain)
 * LUCI – two multi-object and longslit infrared spectrographs plus imagers, one for each side (associated with one of the 8m mirrors) of the telescope. The imager has 2 cameras and can observe in both seeing-limited and diffraction-limited (with adaptive optics) modes. End of commissioning and hand over to the LBTO was in 2018.
 * LINC/Nirvana – wide-field interferometric imaging with adaptive optics at the combined focus (in commissioning).
 * LBTI/LMIRCAM – 2.9 to 5.2 micron Fizeau imaging and medium resolution grism spectroscopy at the combined focus.
 * LBTI/NOMIC – N band nulling imager for the study of protoplanetary and debris disks at the combined focus. (In commissioning phase – first stabilization of the fringes in December 2013)
 * FLAO – first light adaptive optics to correct atmospheric distortion
 * ARGOS – multiple laser guide star unit capable of supporting ground layer or multi conjugate adaptive optics. End of commissioning and handover to LBTO was in 2018.

LUCI
LUCI (originally LUCIFER: Large Binocular Telescope Near-infrared Spectroscopic Utility with Camera and Integral Field Unit for Extragalactic Research) is the near-infrared instrument for the LBT. The name of the instrument was changed to LUCI in 2012. LUCI operates in the 0.9–2.5 μm spectral range using a 2048 x 2048 element Hawaii-2RG detector array from Teledyne and provides imaging and spectroscopic capabilities in seeing- and diffraction-limited modes. In its focal plane area, long-slit and multi-slit masks can be installed for single-object and multi-object spectroscopy. A fixed collimator produces an image of the entrance aperture in which either a mirror (for imaging) or a grating can be positioned. Three camera optics with numerical apertures of 1.8, 3.75 and 30 provide image scales of 0.25, 0.12, and 0.015 arcsec/detector element for wide field, seeing-limited and diffraction-limited observations. LUCI is operated at cryogenic temperatures, and is therefore enclosed in a cryostat of 1.6 m diameter and 1.6 m height, and cooled to about −200 °C by two closed-cycle coolers.

LBTO collaboration
Partners in the LBT project
 * Arizona, USA (25%) – AZ
 * The University of Arizona (Headquarters) – Tucson
 * Arizona State University – Tempe
 * Northern Arizona University – Flagstaff
 * Germany (25%) – LBTB
 * Landessternwarte – Heidelberg
 * Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam – Potsdam
 * Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie – Heidelberg
 * Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik – Munich
 * Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie – Bonn
 * Italy (25%) – INAF
 * Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica
 * Research Corporation for Science Advancement, USA (12.5%) – RC
 * The Ohio State University – Ohio
 * University of Notre Dame – Indiana
 * University of Minnesota – Minnesota
 * University of Virginia – Virginia
 * The Ohio State University, Ohio, USA (12.5%) – OSU

Other MGIO facilities

 * Mount Graham Submillimeter Telescope
 * Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope

title: Large Binocular Telescope


text:
Surautomatism

Surautomatism is any theory or act in practice of surrealist creative production taking, or purporting to take, automatism to its most absurd limits.

In their 1945 statement Dialectique de la Dialectique, Romanian surrealists Gherashim Luca and Dolfi Trost wrote,

 * We have returned to the problem of knowledge through images... by establishing a clear distinction between images produced by artistic means and images resulting from rigorously applied scientific procedures, such as the operation of chance or of automatism. We stand opposed to the tendency to reproduce, through symbols, certain valid theoretical contents by the use of pictorial techniques, and believe that the unknown that surrounds us can find a staggering materialization of the highest order in indecipherable images. In generally accepting until now pictorial reproductive means, surrealist painting will find that the way to its blossoming lies in the absurd use of aplastic, objective and entirely non-artistic procedures.

The name surautomatism suggests "going beyond" automatism, but whether surautomatism is anything but a group of methods by which surrealist automatism is practiced is controversial.

Surautomatism includes cubomania, entopic graphomania and various types of what the Romanian surrealists called "indecipherable writing".

title: Surautomatism


text:
Johann Salomo Semler

Johann Salomo Semler (18 December 1725 – 14 March 1791) was a German church historian, biblical commentator, and critic of ecclesiastical documents and of the history of dogmas. He is sometimes known as "the father of German rationalism".

Youth and education
He was born at Saalfeld in Saxe-Saalfeld, the son of a poor clergyman. He grew up in pietistic surroundings, which powerfully influenced him his life through, though he never became a Pietist. In his seventeenth year he entered the University of Halle, where he became the disciple, afterwards the assistant, and finally the literary executor of the orthodox rationalistic professor S. J. Baumgarten. He also wrote Latin poems. In 1749 he accepted the position of editor, with the title of professor, of the Coburg official Gazette. But in 1751 he was invited to the University of Altdorf as professor of philology and history, and in 1752 he became a professor of theology at Halle.

Early work
After the death of Baumgarten in 1757, Semler became head of the theological faculty, and the fierce opposition provoked by his writings and lectures only helped increase his fame as a professor. His popularity continued undiminished until 1779. In that year he produced a reply (Beantwortung der Fragmente eines Ungenannten) to the Wolfenbuttel Fragments (see Reimarus) and to K. F. Bahrdt's confession of faith, a step which was interpreted by the extreme rationalists as a revocation of his own rationalistic position.

Contemporary perception
Even the Prussian government, which favoured Bahrdt, made known its displeasure at this new but quite consistent aspect of his position. But, though Semler was not inconsistent with himself in attacking the views of Reimarus and Bahrdt, his popularity began to decline, and towards the end of his life he felt a need to emphasize the apologetic and conservative value of true historical inquiry. His defence of the notorious edict of July 9, 1788, issued by the Prussian minister for ecclesiastical affairs, Johann Christoph von Wöllner, the object of which was to enforce Lutheran orthodoxy, might be cited as a sign of the decline of his powers and of an unfaithfulness to his principles. He died at Halle, Magdeburg, exhausted and disappointed.

Classification
The importance of Semler, sometimes called "the father of German rationalism", in the history of theology and the human mind is that of a critic of biblical and ecclesiastical documents and of the history of dogmas. He was not a philosophical thinker or theologian, though he insisted, with an energy and persistency before unknown, on certain distinctions of great importance when properly worked out and applied, e.g. the distinction between religion and theology, that between private personal beliefs and public historical creeds, and that between the local and temporal and the permanent elements of historical religion. His great work was that of the critic. He was the first to reject the equal value of the Old and New Testaments, the uniform authority of all parts of the Bible, the divine authority of the traditional canon of Scripture, the inspiration and supposed correctness of the text of the Old and New Testaments, and, generally, the identification of revelation with Scripture.

Though to some extent anticipated by the British deist, Thomas Morgan, Semler was the first to take due note of and use for critical purposes the opposition between the Judaic and anti-Judaic parties of the early church. He led the way in the task of discovering the origin of the Gospels, the Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse. He revived previous doubts as to the direct Pauline origin of the Epistle to the Hebrews, called in question Peter's authorship of the first epistle, and referred the second epistle to the end of the 2nd century. He wished to remove the Apocalypse altogether from the canon. In textual criticism Semler pursued further the principle of classifying manuscripts in families, adopted by Richard Simon and Johann Albrecht Bengel. In church history Semler did the work of a pioneer in many periods and in several departments. Friedrich Tholuck pronounced him "the father of the history of doctrines," and Ferdinand Christian Baur "the first to deal with that history from the true critical standpoint." At the same time, it is admitted by all that he was nowhere more than a pioneer.

His concept of church has been contrasted with Friedrich Schleiermacher's.

title: Johann Salomo Semler


text:
First light (astronomy)

In astronomy, first light is the first use of a telescope (or, in general, a new instrument) to take an astronomical image after it has been constructed. This is often not the first viewing using the telescope; optical tests will probably have been performed to adjust the components.

Characteristics
The first light image is normally of little scientific interest and is of poor quality, since the various telescope elements are yet to be adjusted for optimum efficiency. Despite this, a first light is always a moment of great excitement, both for the people who design and build the telescope and for the astronomical community, who may have anticipated the moment for many years while the telescope was under construction. A well-known and spectacular astronomical object is usually chosen as a subject.

Historical examples

The famous 200 in Hale Telescope of Palomar Observatory saw first light on 26 January 1949, targeting NGC 2261 under the direction of American astronomer Edwin Powell Hubble. The image was published in many magazines and is available on Caltech Archives.

The Isaac Newton Telescope had two first lights: one in England in 1965 with its original mirror, and another in 1984 at La Palma island. The second first light was done with a video camera that showed the Crab Pulsar flashing.

Elation at first light images by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1990 soon gave way to initial disappointment when a flaw prevented adjustments for proper operation. The expected first light image quality was finally achieved after a 1993 servicing mission by Space Shuttle Endeavour.

The Large Binocular Telescope had its first light with a single primary mirror on 12 October 2005, which was a view of NGC 891. The second primary mirror was installed in January 2006 and became fully operational in January 2008.

The 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias had a first light image of Tycho 1205081 on 14 July 2007.

The IRIS solar space observatory achieved first light on 17 July 2013. The PI noted: "'The quality of images and spectra we are receiving from IRIS is amazing. This is just what we were hoping for ...'"

On 4 February 2022, the first light viewed by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was from the star HD 84406 for the purpose of testing and aligning the focus of the telescope's 18 mirrors. On 11 February 2022. The New York Times reported that "first light" images from the James Webb Space Telescope were released - as well as a related NASA alignment video (2/11/2022; 3:00). On 6 July 2022, NASA released a test image from the JWST's Fine Guidance Sensor. NASA released the first official JWST image on 11 July 2022. Later, in an official ceremony, the first collection of five JWST science images were released on Tuesday, 12 July 2022 (NASA-TV live; 10:30 am/et/usa).

title: First light (astronomy)


text:
The WB

The WB Television Network (shortened to The WB, and nicknamed the "Frog Network" or "The Frog" for its former mascot Michigan J. Frog ) was an American television network launched on broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture between the Warner Bros. Entertainment division of Time Warner and the Tribune Broadcasting subsidiary of the Tribune Company, with the former acting as controlling partner (and from which The WB received its name). The network aired programs targeting teenagers and young adults between the ages of 13 and 35, while its children's division, Kids' WB, targeted children between the ages of 4 and 12.

On January 24, 2006, Warner Bros. and CBS Corporation announced plans to replace their respective subsidiary networks, The WB and UPN, with The CW later that same year. The WB ended its operations on September 17, 2006, with some programs from both it and competitor UPN (which had shut down on September 15) moving to The CW when it launched the following day, September 18.

Time Warner re-used the WB brand for an online network that launched on April 28, 2008. Until it was closed in December 2013, the website allowed users to watch shows aired on the former television network, as well as programming from the defunct In2TV service created prior to Time Warner's spinoff of AOL. The website could only be accessed within the United States.

1993–1995: Origins
Much like its competitor UPN, The WB was created primarily in reaction to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s then-recent deregulation of media ownership rules that repealed the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules, and partly due to the failure of the Fox network (which debuted in October 1986) and first-run syndicated programming during the late 1980s and early 1990s (such as Baywatch, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and War of the Worlds), as well as the erosion in ratings suffered by independent television stations due to the growth of cable television and movie rentals. The network can also trace its beginnings to the Prime Time Entertainment Network (PTEN), a programming service operated as a joint venture between Time Warner and the Chris-Craft Industries group of stations, and launched in January 1993.

On November 2, 1993, the Warner Bros. division of Time Warner announced the formation of The WB Television Network, with the Tribune Company holding a minority interest. As such, Tribune Broadcasting signed agreements to affiliate six of its seven television stations at the time – all of which were independent stations, including the television group's two largest stations, WPIX in New York City and KTLA in Los Angeles – with the network. Only five of these stations, along with a sixth that Tribune acquired the following year, would join The WB at launch; the company's Atlanta independent WGNX would instead agree to affiliate with CBS in September 1994, as a result of Fox's affiliation deal with New World Communications, then-owner of longtime CBS station WAGA-TV. In contrast, New Orleans sister station WGNO did become a WB charter affiliate before joining ABC in January 1996 due to a similar affiliation deal between Fox and longtime ABC station WVUE-TV.

On December 3, 1993, The WB announced a separate affiliation agreement with Tribune for its Chicago flagship station WGN-TV (which originally planned to remain an independent station due to concerns about handling its sports programming commitments while maintaining a network affiliation); through this deal, WGN's superstation feed would provide additional national distribution for The WB as a cable-only affiliate, in order to give the network time to fill gaps in markets where it was unable to find an affiliate at launch. Although Tribune had a minority stake in the network, its stations were not technically considered owned-and-operated stations of The WB since Time Warner held controlling interest in the network's ownership.

When the network was announced, The WB planned to run a predominantly network-programmed schedule over time. It was originally slated to launch with two nights of primetime programming in its first year, and two additional nights of primetime programming, a nightly half-hour in late primetime, 4½ hours of weekday daytime programming and a four-hour Saturday morning children's lineup in its second year. By the third year, a fifth night of primetime and 1½ hours of weekday programming outside of primetime would have been added, followed by an additional hour of programming in primetime and 1½ hours on weekday afternoons by the network's fourth year, and a seventh night of primetime in the fifth year of operation. However, this plan was scaled back dramatically, as The WB launched with only one night of primetime programming; and by September 1995, the network added only one additional night (Sundays), along with a three-hour Saturday morning (later expanded to four, then five hours), one-hour weekday morning and two-hour weekday afternoon children's block.

Warner Bros. appointed many former Fox executives to run the network, including the network's original chief executive Jamie Kellner, who served as president of Fox from 1986 to 1993; and president of programming Garth Ancier, who was the programming chief of Fox from 1986 to 1989.

1995–1997: Beginnings
The WB Television Network launched on January 11, 1995, with the debut airing of the first episode of The Wayans Bros. (a sitcom starring comedians Shawn and Marlon Wayans) as its first program. The classic Warner Bros. cartoon character Michigan J. Frog appeared on-air as the network's official mascot (with animator Chuck Jones, in person, drawing him out after Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck argued about who should launch The WB during the network's premiere), and would remain as part of the network's branding in one form or another until 2005.

Much of the network's branding was based around Warner Bros. locations and characters: the television network's original logo (which was originally displayed upright until 1998, and displayed at a titled angle thereafter) was based on the typography of the iconic Warner Bros. Pictures' "shield" logo; network promotions and imaging campaigns for The WB and the Kids' WB block from their launches until the 2003–2004 season were also centered on the Warner Bros. Studios backlot and the Warner Bros. Ranch, often involving large neon signs promoting the nights of programming and their component shows (at times including signs for Kids' WB and certain shows from that block); this approach was similar to one used for Fox's 1989–90 "This is the Year" fall campaign (likely borrowed for The WB by former Fox executives Kellner and Ancier). Local station IDs initially used by some WB affiliates until 1997—set to a soft orchestral theme incorporating the musical signature of "Hello Ma Baby"—featured moving projections of the "WB" lettering on CGI models of the Warner Bros. studio lot, with the end tag (in which the affiliate's logo is displayed) prominently featuring the lot's water tower next to a translucent outline of the "WB" logotype (which is briefly lit up as the image zooms out to show the tower and model soundstages).

The WB's scheduling structure was similar to Fox's when it launched, as it started with one night a week of programming and then gradually added additional nights of programming over the course of several seasons: the network started with a two-hour Wednesday night lineup of sitcoms, airing from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time. The limited amount of network programming in The WB's early years essentially rendered its affiliates as nominal independent stations; because of this, affiliates held the responsibility of programming primetime slots on nights that the network did not program, airing either first-run and/or off-network syndicated programs or more commonly, movies.

Several of the network's first programs were black sitcoms. Four of the five shows that debuted in the network's first nine months were renewed beyond the first year – The Wayans Bros., Unhappily Ever After (a dysfunctional family sitcom from Married... with Children co-creator Ron Leavitt), The Parent 'Hood (a family sitcom starring and co-created by Robert Townsend), and Sister, Sister (a teen/blended family sitcom starring Tia and Tamera Mowry that was picked up by the network after its cancellation by ABC in the spring of 1995). The four shows had a lasting impact on audiences, while a fifth show, Muscle (a sitcom that parodied primetime soap operas), was canceled after one season due to low ratings, and ultimately replaced with Sister, Sister.

On August 17, 1995, the Tribune Company acquired a 12.5% limited partnership interest in The WB for $12 million; the deal gave Tribune an option to increase its stake in the network up to a 25% interest; Tribune would eventually increase its ownership share in The WB to 22.5% on March 31, 1997.

The WB expanded its programming to Sunday nights for the 1995–96 season, but none of the new shows (including the Kirk Cameron vehicle Kirk and night-time soap opera Savannah) managed to garner much viewing interest. The network also launched the Kids' WB programming block in September 1995, which featured a mix of existing Warner Bros. animated series that originated either on Fox Kids or in syndication and originally aired on Monday through Saturday mornings. The WB continued to expand in the 1996–97 season, adding programming on Monday nights. This season gave The WB modest hits in the Aaron Spelling-produced family drama 7th Heaven (centering on a reverend and his family) and comedies The Steve Harvey Show (starring Harvey as a funk musician working as a music teacher at an inner-city Chicago high school), and The Jamie Foxx Show (starring Foxx as an aspiring actor/singer working at a Los Angeles hotel owned by his aunt and uncle).

1997–2000: Courting the teen market
The WB first had success with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (a series based on the 1992 film of the same name) which became a hit with critics when it premiered as a mid-season replacement in March 1997. The series debuted with the highest Monday night ratings in the network's history, attracting not only new teenage viewers, but new advertisers as well.

Inspired by Buffy's success, The WB intentionally shifted the focus of its programming, trying to capture what it perceived to be a heavily fragmented market by marketing to the under-courted teen demographic. While the Fox network, the previous destination for teen television (with shows such as Beverly Hills, 90210, Party of Five and Parker Lewis Can't Lose), began to court older audiences with shows such as Ally McBeal, The WB began to craft its identity with programs targeted at teenagers. The network's breakout hit and, arguably, its signature series was Dawson's Creek, which debuted in January 1998 to what were then the highest ratings in the network's history (and made stars out of its four principal actors, James Van Der Beek, Michelle Williams, Joshua Jackson, and Katie Holmes). The series was produced by Columbia TriStar Television and it quickly became the highest-rated show on television among teenage girls, and the most popular program on The WB. The popularity of Dawson helped boost the network's other shows, such as Buffy, which served as its lead-in on The WB's new night of programming that also launched in January 1998, branded as "New Tuesday", and 7th Heaven, which enjoyed a massive 81% increase in viewership that season.

With three hit shows in its roster, The WB continued to build its teen fanbase the following season with college drama Felicity (which made a star out of lead Keri Russell) and the wicca-themed Charmed (which was also produced by Aaron Spelling, and co-starred Alyssa Milano, Holly Marie Combs and 90210 alumna Shannen Doherty), both of which set new records for the network when they respectively premiered to 7.1 and 7.7 million viewers; Charmed had the highest-rated premiere on the network until Smallville broke its record, debuting to 8.4 million viewers in October 2001. At the start of the 1998–99 season, the network expanded its programming to Thursday nights. That season, 7th Heaven overtook Dawson's Creek as the network's highest-rated program, and garnered The WB the highest ratings it would ever see – the show's February 8, 1999, episode attracted 12.5 million viewers.

For the 1999–2000 season, the network concluded its primetime expansion with the addition of programming on Friday nights. New shows that season included Roswell, Popular, and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off Angel, the latter of which premiered with 7.5 million viewers – the second-highest rated premiere for the network at the time. During this season, The WB was the only network to have gains in its total audience viewership and in each key demographic.

2000–2003: Broadening the focus
As the teen boom of the late 1990s began to wane, The WB attempted to broaden the scope of its primetime lineup. Although teen-oriented fare like Popular and Roswell had premiered to strong ratings, both series saw serious ratings erosion in their sophomore seasons, leading the network to cancel them both (Roswell, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, would end up being revived by rival network UPN). Meanwhile, even though ratings for 7th Heaven, Buffy and Charmed remained consistent, viewership for flagship series such as Felicity and Dawson's Creek began sagging. The network realized that it could no longer rely merely on the tastes of young teenage girls, and thus began moving back into more family-friendly fare, attempting to launch a successful sitcom, and generally targeting a more diverse audience.

This new strategy came as The WB had dropped to sixth place in the ratings among all major broadcast networks (behind UPN) during the 1999–2000 season, losing 19% of its household audience. Executives for the network attributed the ratings decline in large part due to the Tribune Company's decision to remove WB network programming from WGN-TV's superstation feed in October 1999, on the pretense that the network's national distribution was large enough that it was no longer necessary for WGN to broadcast The WB's programs outside of Chicago; the network reached several affiliation deals during the prior four years with various station owners (such as the Sinclair Broadcast Group and Pappas Telecasting Companies), buoyed by the September 1998 launch of The WB 100+ Station Group, a national cable-only service that served most of the 110 smallest Nielsen media markets in the United States that did not have enough television stations to support an over-the-air affiliate. The removal of The WB's programs from the WGN national feed effectively reduced the network's potential household audience by 10 million homes (WGN-TV continued to carry WB programming over-the-air and on cable within the Chicago market until the network shut down in 2006).

Despite the slight downturn in the network's fortunes, there were a few bright spots during the era. Gilmore Girls, which debuted in 2000, netted meager ratings when it debuted in a tough Thursday timeslot (where it competed against NBC's powerhouse Must See TV lineup), but subsequently grew into one of the network's most successful shows after moving to Tuesdays in 2001, where it remained for six seasons (before moving to The CW for its seventh and final season). Also in the fall of 2000, the fantasy sitcom Sabrina, the Teenage Witch moved from ABC to The WB as part of its Friday night schedule; the show continued on the network for three more seasons before ending in May 2003.

Time Warner transferred operational duties for The WB from Warner Bros. over to its Turner Broadcasting System division in 2001. On November 12, 2002, chairman Jamie Kellner – who became chairman and chief executive officer of the Turner Broadcasting System concurrent with that deal – sold his 11% stake in The WB to majority corporate parent AOL Time Warner, leaving it and minority owner, the Tribune Company, as the only partners in the network. Following Kellner's departure from Turner, AOL Time Warner reassigned the network's operations back to the Warner Bros. unit in 2003.

In October 2001, the Superman-inspired Smallville debuted with 8.4 million viewers, the highest-rated premiere in the history of the network; that show was also important because it was one of the few series that drew a substantial male viewership. 2001 also saw the launch of the Reba McEntire vehicle Reba, arguably the network's most successful comedy; Reba and Sabrina served as the linchpins of a new Friday night sitcom block that debuted in October 2001 (delayed from a mid-September launch, as other networks did with their fall schedules following the September 11 terrorist attacks) and continued for much of the remainder of the network's run (comedies on that night were relegated to one hour in April 2006, with reality series filling the 8:00 p.m. hour). Other series to gain attention during this period were the family drama Everwood, and the short-lived but critically acclaimed soap satire Grosse Pointe.

2003–2006: Decline
Despite some early success, the network struggled to shift its focus from the female 12–24 demographic to the broader 12–34 range, in its attempt to attract a broader young adult audience. In 2005, the network retired Michigan J. Frog, as the network's trademark mascot. The WB's president of entertainment at the time, David Janollari, explained in July 2005 at the network's summer press tour that "[Michigan] was a symbol that perpetuated the young-teen feel of the network. That's not the image we [now] want to put to our audience."

Still, the move did not seem to help the network. The period from 2003 to 2005 produced only three viable new series, the teen-oriented drama One Tree Hill, social experiment reality competition Beauty and the Geek, and fantasy drama Supernatural (all of which ultimately moved to successor network The CW), and even still their ratings paled in comparison to the ratings peaks of Dawson's Creek, which had ended its run in May 2003. Ratings dropped for many of The WB's shows, while also cancelling shows with steady ratings such as Angel; the network failed to launch new hit shows to take their places.

Although The WB's well-known inability to launch successful comedy series was nothing new (Reba being a notable exception), this period saw the network struggling to establish new dramas as well. High-profile failures included Birds of Prey (a series inspired by the Batman mythos, which premiered in October 2002 with an impressive 8 share), Tarzan, Jack & Bobby, The Mountain, the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced legal dramedy Just Legal, the Marta Kauffman-created dramedy Related, and the Rebecca Romijn vehicle Pepper Dennis.

During the 2004–05 season, The WB finished behind rival UPN for the first time in four years, and fell even further behind in fall 2005. Both networks fell behind Spanish language network Univision in the overall 18–34 demographic. Between November and December 2005, the network laid off approximately 40 employees amid continued ratings and profit losses (with viewership down 12% by November 2005), with network representatives expecting The WB to lose about $35 million during the 2005–06 fiscal year. The WB was programming six days and 13 hours per week at this time.

2006: Network closure
On January 24, 2006, CBS Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment announced plans to shut down both UPN and The WB and partner to launch a new broadcast television network that would include series from both soon-to-be predecessor networks, known as The CW. Over the next eight months, it was to be seen which shows from the two networks would cross over to The CW, as well as which stations aligned with either UPN or The WB would become future affiliates of the new network. In the end, seven shows from The WB, 7th Heaven, Beauty and the Geek, Gilmore Girls, One Tree Hill, Reba, Smallville, and Supernatural were chosen to move to The CW for its inaugural 2006–07 fall schedule. 7th Heaven and Reba were originally canceled after the 2005–06 season, but were ultimately renewed at the last minute with 13-episode deals (the former show was later given a full-season order, while the latter served as a midseason replacement and, in spite of becoming The CW's highest-rated comedy of the 2006–07 season, ended rather abruptly). Supernatural, which aired its final (15th) season in the fall of 2020, was the last surviving series from The WB that remained on the CW network schedule.

Tribune Broadcasting also committed 16 of its 19 WB-affiliated stations at the time to serve as the network's core affiliates (though it relinquished its stake in The WB shortly after the launch announcement for The CW, in order to avoid shouldering shutdown costs for The WB, and would not take on an ownership stake in The CW) – alongside 11 UPN O&Os that were named as CW charter stations by CBS Corporation. Starting on August 14, 2006, with the Daytime WB block, The WB stopped displaying its on-screen logo bug during the network's programming and replaced it with a countdown of days until The CW's premiere. Some stations that either affiliated with MyNetworkTV (itself created in response to Tribune and CBS receiving affiliation deals with The CW, leaving UPN affiliates owned by Fox Television Stations, a subsidiary of MyNetworkTV's original parent company News Corporation, with the prospect of ending up as independents), became independent stations or became CW charter affiliates received a logo-free feed of the network, while others took the main feed and overlaid the station's own logo bug over The CW's logo.

The WB aired its final night of programming on September 17, 2006, with The Night of Favorites and Farewells, a five-hour block of pilot episodes of the network's past signature series. Commercial breaks featured re-airings of past image campaigns and network promotions, along with promotional spots given to cable networks carrying these shows in off-network syndication and ads for each series' TV-on-DVD box set. The 60-second montage that closed The WB's existence featured many well-known stars from shows which aired during the 11-year run of the network, ending with the 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 final image seen in the montage was former network mascot Michigan J. Frog (who was shown as a silhouette due to the animated character being retired as The WB's mascot the year before), who is shown taking his hat off and bowing, thanking the audience for watching the network for 11 years and marking the end of The WB.

Shortly thereafter, after the studio credits (instead of The WB's standard credits scheme) for the Dawson's Creek pilot aired, several former WB affiliates acknowledged their switch to The CW on their newscasts, with most adopting their new CW branding immediately. One instance of this was New York City affiliate WPIX, who aired a montage of logos the station has used throughout its history, leading up to its new "CW11" logo before the start of its 10:00 p.m. newscast.

The final night of WB programming netted relatively low ratings. The network scored a 1.0 household rating (amounting to 1% of all U.S. television households) and a share of 2, meaning just 2% of viewers were tuned into The WB on its final night of programming. This was mostly due to the fact that some WB affiliates in certain areas had already joined MyNetworkTV, which debuted on September 5, two weeks before The CW's launch, leaving The WB's final two weeks of programming unavailable in those areas. After its closure, the network's URLs were redirected to The CW's website, cwtv.com. By March 30, 2008, the URLs redirected to the Warner Bros. Studios homepage, before being redirected to the TheWB.com beta website one month later on April 28.

The CW maintained many operational and scheduling elements from The WB. When it launched on September 18, 2006, The CW initially maintained The WB's scheduling model; The WB had carried 30 hours of network programming each week (13 of which were devoted to primetime shows) in comparison to UPN's weekly programming total of 12 hours (10 hours of which were allocated to primetime shows). It also inherited The WB 100+ Station Group – which became The CW Plus – though the distribution model of The CW Plus started to differ from The WB 100+ by mixing digital subchannel affiliations, alongside the cable-only affiliates and few conventional affiliate stations that were part of the predecessor group at the end of The WB's run. The CW continued the Daytime WB block – which became The CW Daytime (and was reduced from two hours to one in 2010), although three blocks that moved to The CW from The WB would eventually be discontinued: Kids' WB continued on The CW until May 17, 2008, when it was replaced with The CW4Kids after 4Kids Entertainment began programming The CW's Saturday morning block through a time-lease agreement (Kids' WB was later relaunched as an online portal); The CW discontinued its Sunday primetime schedule in September 2009, effectively ending the EasyView block in the process (The CW returned to Sunday primetime nights on October 14, 2018, but with only two hours to program), and dropped the CW Daytime block in the 2021–22 season in favor of a weekly Saturday-night primetime schedule.

2008–2013: Internet streaming
Warner Bros.' television arm planned on resurrecting the WB brand in the form of a website at TheWB.com, the website domain used for the official site of the broadcast network. The site streamed episodes of series that were broadcast during The WB's 1995–2006 run, including Gilmore Girls, Smallville, Everwood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dawson's Creek, One Tree Hill, Roswell, and What I Like About You. The new incarnation of the TheWB.com began in beta testing on April 28, 2008, and officially launched on August 27. The site – whose business model resembled that of free-to-stream services such as Hulu – was ad-supported and geared primarily to men, and women ages 15–39. In addition to older full-length series (among which also included All of Us, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, Martin, Jack & Bobby, and Veronica Mars), the website featured original serialized web content including short series and vignettes from such well-known television producers as Josh Schwartz and McG, including Sorority Forever, Pushed, Rockville, CA, The Lake, and Children's Hospital (the latter's popularity was sustained enough to receive a run and eventual move to cable television as a regular series on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block). Each of these 10-episode programs ran for five minutes.

Many other well-known Warner Bros.-produced series that did not air on The WB, including Friends and The O.C., were also made available on the site. However, the website did not include episodes of two of The WB's most popular shows, Charmed and Felicity, as the distribution rights to Charmed are owned by CBS Television Distribution and Felicity's rights are owned by Disney-ABC Domestic Television. Comcast offers over 1,000 episodes from the Warner Bros. Television library on its video on demand service. While Warner Bros. Entertainment did not promote the site in any multimedia ads, it had drawn about 250,000 unique viewers a month, according to Mindshare's Mr. Chapman, who had been tracking the site. Some of its original material had been offered on partner sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Data compiled by comScore Video Metrix showed that 62% of visitors to the site were female.

The McG-produced original series Sorority Forever premiered on the site on September 8, 2008. By 2012, it had accrued more than 7.3 million views from TheWB.com and partner sites. An original reality series, Rich Girl, Poor Girl from Laguna Beach and Newport Harbor executive producer Gary Auerbach, in which two teenagers from different economic and social backgrounds swap lives (similar in format to Wife Swap and A Walk in Your Shoes), had ranked among the top 100 programs in the teenage category on iTunes since its October 20, 2008, debut. With the full replacement of the CW's original Internet programming efforts with their CW Seed portal, The WB website was shut down in December 2013. The closure of The WB website ended, after more than eighteen years, the usage of the brand name "The WB". However, the legacy of The WB still lives on as of 2019. Various programs that aired on the network air reruns on various cable networks such as MTV2 and TNT. Also, WMJF, a small student-run television station at Towson University just outside Baltimore, Maryland, still uses the same call letters (WMJF – Michigan J. Frog) from when the station was a WB affiliate. A neon likeness of Michigan J. Frog also adorns the facade of former WB affiliate WBNX-TV's studio complex in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. Similarly, a large Hollywood lights-style sign of the network's logo that was used in the network's "backlot"-themed idents, promos, and bumpers is still located near storage facilities at the Warner Bros. Ranch Facilities in California, where the network's idents, promos, and bumpers were filmed at the same location.

Internet advertising
The clothing retailer H&M, not a traditional television advertiser in the United States, sponsored Sorority Forever and had some of its clothing worn by characters in the series. Unilever's Axe brand has sponsored Children's Hospital. Warner Horizon Television executive vice president Craig Erwich, who oversaw TheWB.com, said in regards to these tie-ins "If an advertiser has an interest in a series we have in production, we can work in their products or even adjust our launch dates if they want to tie it in to a special promotion."

Programming
Much, though not all, of The WB's programming during its eleven-year run as a television network was produced by corporate cousin Warner Bros. Television. The network's schedule during its first two seasons – the 1995 midseason (when it inaugurated its initial Wednesday lineup) and the first half of the 1995–96 season (when the network expanded its programming to Sundays) – consisted entirely of sitcoms; the first drama series to debut on the network was the primetime soap Savannah, which debuted in February 1996 and ran for two seasons until its cancellation in February 1997. The WB's first reality series was the U.S. adaptation of Popstars, which ran for two seasons from 2001 to 2003.

In addition to live-action programs, the network has experimented with primetime animated series; Pinky and the Brain was the first such series, airing as part of the network's Sunday lineup from September 1995 to July 1996, before moving exclusively to the Kids' WB Saturday lineup due to low ratings in its prime time slot. Most of the animated projects that aired afterward were adult animation series; the last such attempts being The Oblongs (running for one season in 2001, and was later revived on corporate sister Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block) and The PJs (which moved to the network in 2000 following its cancellation by Fox, and ran for only one additional season on The WB).

The WB also occasionally aired regularly scheduled repeat episodes of first-run series airing on other nights throughout the television season intermittently throughout its history; Sister, Sister was the first WB series to receive this treatment, with repeats of the sitcom's first two seasons (which originally aired on ABC) from August 1995 to August 1996, in addition to the first-run episodes it aired on Wednesday nights (this marked the first time that a network aired reruns as part of its regular schedule – outside of the summer months – since December 1993, when NBC removed repeats of Classic Concentration from its daytime lineup two years after that program's cancellation). From 1998 to 2000, the network also aired episode repeats from the first two seasons of 7th Heaven during the first hour of its Sunday lineup under the title 7th Heaven Beginnings; this concept was revived during the 2002–03 and 2003–04 seasons with Smallville and Gilmore Girls (which aired repeats from their early seasons under the respective titles Smallville: Beginnings and Gilmore Girls: Beginnings). Furthermore, from September 2002 until The WB ceased operations, the network ran a two-hour extension of its Sunday lineup (from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time), known as "EasyView", a block featuring week-behind episode rebroadcasts of select shows from the network's primetime schedule.

Out of all the network's series, 7th Heaven – which by the time it ended, had become the longest-running family drama in television history – was the longest-running series ever to have aired on The WB, having run on the network for ten seasons from 1996 to 2006. The program was beaten by Supernatural as the longest-running series to originate on The WB in the 2017–18 season, when the latter series began its thirteenth season (7th Heaven ran for an additional season on The CW from 2006 to 2007; while Supernatural aired on The WB for one season from 2005 to 2006, before moving to The CW in September 2006, ending in 2020).

Children's programming
The WB debuted the Kids' WB children's program block in September 1995; the lineup initially featured a mix of Warner Bros.' most popular children's shows (such as Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, and later Batman: The Animated Series, all of which originated either on Fox Kids or in syndication) and newer series (such as Freakazoid!, Histeria!, Superman: The Animated Series, Road Rovers, Pinky and the Brain, and Batman Beyond). After the Turner Broadcasting System was acquired by Time Warner in 1996, Kids' WB formed an alliance with Cartoon Network, resulting over time in an increasing number of programs being shared between the block and the cable channel.

In February 1999, Kids' WB began airing the American English dub of Pokémon. The WB acquired the U.S. rights to the Japanese animated series from TV Tokyo earlier that year (from its U.S. premiere in the fall of 1998 up to that point, the show was syndicated); the series ultimately became a widespread pop culture phenomenon with the added exposure on the network. Kids' WB also acquired the English-language dub of Yu-Gi-Oh!, which also saw the type of viewer popularity experienced by Pokémon. Between 2000 and 2005, Kids' WB experimented with some live-action programming, though the block continued to mainly run animated series. A television series adaptation of R. L. Stine's The Nightmare Room debuted on the block in 2001; it was cancelled after one season. It also aired the live-action made-for-TV movie Zolar, as well as the JammX Kids All-Star dance specials.

With Cartoon Network outrating Fox Kids, and The WB sharing more of its children's programming with the cable channel, The WB announced on May 31, 2005, that it would discontinue Kids' WB's weekday afternoon block as it became financially unattractive due to broadcast stations shifting their afternoon target audiences more exclusively to adults by filling the slot with talk shows and sitcom reruns, on the basis that children's viewing options in that time period had gravitated more towards cable television. Kids' WB's weekday programming continued, but with redundant programs and theme weeks until December 30, 2005 (the block began to increasingly promote Cartoon Network's afternoon Miguzi block and the Kids' WB Saturday morning lineup during the transition). The weekday block was replaced on January 2, 2006, by "Daytime WB," a block that featured repeats of sitcoms and drama series formerly aired by The WB and other networks (such as ER, 8 Simple Rules, and What I Like About You); five days later on January 7, the Kids' WB Saturday morning lineup was expanded by one hour.

The Daytime WB block continued on The CW, unofficially renamed The CW Daytime (though occasional on-air promos for the block did not refer to this name, the block was discontinued in 2021 when The CW dropped the weekday 3 PM hour in favor of a Saturday primetime night); The CW also kept the Kids' WB name for the network's Saturday morning children's programming. However, on October 2, 2007, The CW announced that it would discontinue the Kids' WB block, due to competition with youth-oriented cable channels. Kids' WB aired for the last time on May 17, 2008, replaced with a new block programmed in conjunction with 4Kids Entertainment called The CW4Kids (which was replaced by Vortexx on August 25, 2012, after Saban Brands and Kidsco Media Ventures took over programming the block as part of its acquisition of much of 4Kids's program library; Vortexx continued to run until September 27, 2014, before being replaced a week later by One Magnificent Morning programmed by Litton Entertainment). As a result of its distribution deal with The CW, 4Kids produced Saturday morning blocks for two networks during the 2008–09 season, as it already programmed Fox's 4Kids TV block (which was discontinued by that network on December 27, 2008).

Like its parent network, Kids' WB was revived as an online-only network in April 2008. In addition to carrying select previous Kids' WB programs, the site also featured other archived programs to which Time Warner owned or held distribution rights, and programs seen on Cartoon Network and Boomerang. The Kids' WB website was shut down on May 17, 2015, when it was split into three sites: DCKids.com, LooneyTunes.com, and ScoobyDoo.com; the latter two were regrouped into WB Kids Go in July 2016.

Scheduling
At the time of its shutdown, The WB ran only two hours of primetime network programming on Monday through Fridays and five hours on Sundays, compared to the three Monday through Saturday and four Sunday primetime hours offered by the Big Three networks (unlike The WB, UPN never carried any weekend primetime programming, though it did offer a movie package to its affiliates on weekend afternoons until September 2000, when the latter was replaced with a two-hour repeat block of UPN programs). This primetime scheduling allowed for many of the network's affiliates to air local newscasts during the 10:00–11:00 p.m. (Eastern and Pacific) time period.

The WB never ran network programming on Saturday nights – despite the fact that the network maintained a children's program block on Saturday mornings – allowing affiliates to run syndicated programs, sports, movies or network programs that were preempted from earlier in the week due to special programming, in the 8:00–10:00 p.m. (Eastern and Pacific) time period. The network's Sunday schedule was originally three hours when The WB began programming that night in September 1995, but expanded to five hours (from 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time) in September 2002, with the creation of the "EasyView" repeat block (that block was retained by The CW, which initially adopted The WB's scheduling model until it turned Sunday programming over to its affiliates in September 2009).

In comparison to ABC and CBS, The WB also had the fewest hours devoted to daytime programming on weekdays between September 2001 (when the network dropped the weekday morning block of Kids' WB programs) and September 2006, running only two hours of programming each weekday afternoon (compared to 4½ hours on CBS and four hours on ABC) – NBC in comparison ran only three hours of daytime programming each weekday (not counting its morning news program Today) until September 2000, when it scaled back its daytime programming block to two hours. Because of these reasons, the schedules of The WB's affiliates were largely composed of syndicated programming.

Affiliate distribution
The WB was the only English language broadcast network that historically did not have any owned-and-operated stations. Although Tribune Broadcasting maintained an ownership stake in The WB, its stations in the three largest television markets of New York City (WPIX), Los Angeles (KTLA) and Chicago (WGN-TV) were affiliates of the network since Tribune did not have a controlling ownership interest in the network to allow its stations to be constituted as O&Os (by 2005, Tribune owned 22.5% of the network, while Time Warner held the controlling 77.5% interest). Time Warner did not have a station group of its own at the time (and still does not in the present day); although its Turner Broadcasting System division did own Atlanta independent station WPCH-TV (then WTBS-TV, the local feed of then-superstation TBS) at the time, but it never carried WB programming due to the network's affiliation with WATL, which Tribune Broadcasting had owned from 1999 (when it acquired the station from Qwest Broadcasting, which was part-owned by Tribune) to 2006 (when it sold the station to the Gannett Company, now Tegna, Inc.).

Unlike the other major networks, The WB distributed its programming in markets that did not have enough commercial television stations to support a standalone WB affiliate to cable-only outlets: the superstation feed of WGN-TV (now known as NewsNation and since converted into a general news cable channel) carried the network's programming from January 1995 to October 1999 to make The WB available primarily to areas where it did not yet have a full-time affiliate. While viewers in the Chicago area saw primetime and Kids' WB programming on separate stations until September 2004 (primetime shows on WGN-TV and children's programs on WCIU-TV), the WGN superstation feed carried the WB's entire schedule during the four-year period that it carried the network.

On September 21, 1998, The WB launched The WB 100+ Station Group, an alternate national feed for small and certain mid-sized U.S. markets (generally those within the bottom 110 Nielsen media markets). The service – which transmitted its content via an IBM-developed data server network that digitally transmitted local and national advertisements, promos, station identifications and customized logo bugs to each individual affiliate, with the programming feeds and accompanying data being relayed via satellite and stored to a wireless PC-based system (known as a "station in a box") – was primarily affiliated with cable-only television channels (which were mainly operated by area cable providers), though it was also carried on full-power or low-power stations in some markets. The WB 100+ offered its own master schedule with programs available on the syndication market that were acquired by The WB (including some feature films and infomercials) airing outside of network programming hours; the addition of local advertisements and newscasts were at the discretion of the local distributor. Most of the stations that were part of The WB 100+ Station Group joined The CW Plus after The CW's September 2006 launch, though most of the cable-only affiliates that became part of The CW Plus have since been replaced by or converted into digital subchannels carried by major network affiliates.

WT05 in Toledo, Ohio, was the only cable-exclusive WB affiliate that was not part of The WB 100+ Station Group; owner Block Communications (which operates area cable provider Buckeye CableSystem) handled programming for WT05, running its own schedule of syndicated programs during non-network hours – a model the channel maintained as a CW affiliate until its shutdown and replacement by WTVG-DT2 in October 2014. In certain mid-sized and smaller markets, some of The WB's stations held dual affiliations with another major network – most commonly, UPN (with The WB often serving as the primary affiliation) – if there were not enough television stations to allow both networks to maintain separate affiliates (though this was also the case in a few markets where enough stations were available for a standalone affiliate).

News programming
News programming on The WB's affiliates was similar to Fox stations at the time in that the quantity of newscasts varied from station to station. Roughly half of The WB's approximately 200 affiliates aired a local newscast in the 10:00–11:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific (9:00–10:00 p.m. Central/Mountain) time slot at some point during or throughout their affiliations with the network. Fundamentally, the newscast schedules on WB affiliates varied considerably between stations compared to those affiliated with ABC, CBS, NBC and especially Fox. Most WB affiliates generally ran a two-hour morning newscast on weekdays and/or a half-hour or hour-long 10:00 p.m. newscast on Monday through Fridays only or all seven nights of the week; although there were a few larger market stations that maintained in-house news departments that also produced midday newscasts and had morning newscasts that began in the then-traditional 5:00–7:00 a.m. timeslot; early evening newscasts were largely absent on most of these stations.

The WB affiliate body had fewer news-producing stations in comparison to stations aligned with the Big Three television networks (NBC, ABC and CBS) and considerably fewer than Fox (which has only around 70 stations with in-house news departments, with most of its stations outsourcing their news programming to a competitor). When the network launched in January 1995, The WB automatically gained five affiliates with functioning news departments through the initial agreement with Tribune Broadcasting, all of whom founded their news operations as either independent stations or during early affiliations with other networks, such as the DuMont Television Network: WGN-TV in Chicago, WPIX in New York City, KTLA in Los Angeles, KWGN-TV in Denver and WLVI-TV in Boston (a fifth news-producing station owned by Tribune at the time, WGNX in Atlanta, was to become a WB charter affiliate but instead affiliated with CBS after WAGA-TV dropped that network to join Fox in December 1994, through a groupwide affiliation deal between Fox and WAGA owner New World Communications). KPLR-TV in St. Louis (which would not be acquired by Tribune until 2003, when it bought the station from ACME Communications) also continued to produce a 9:00 p.m. newscast as a WB affiliate; while Phoenix, Arizona's KTVK began running expanded newscasts shortly before joining The WB at the network's launch (it had earlier lost the ABC affiliation to KNXV-TV; The WB affiliation moved to KASW, which KTVK began managing under a local marketing agreement upon its sign-on, in September 1995).

In the late 1990s, Tribune asked the company's remaining WB-affiliated stations that did not run newscasts to develop their own news departments; the only stations to do this were KDAF in Dallas–Fort Worth, KHWB in Houston, KSWB-TV in San Diego and WPHL-TV in Philadelphia – the first three debuted their newscasts in 1999, while WPHL had debuted a 10:00 p.m. newscast that was produced in conjunction with The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1994, before WPHL took over production of the program in 1996. KSWB and WPHL would both shutter their news departments in 2005, outsourcing production of their 10:00 p.m. newscasts to NBC owned-and-operated stations in their respective markets (KSWB restored in-house newscasts after it switched from WB successor The CW to Fox in August 2008). KNTV in San Jose became the largest news-producing WB affiliate by market size to be owned by a company other than Tribune (and the only other affiliate of the network to produce early evening newscasts, after KTVK) after it terminated its ABC affiliation, and began carrying WB programming (in a partial simulcast with then-sister station KBWB-TV) in 2000, before affiliating with – and then ultimately being purchased by – NBC in 2002.

Sinclair Broadcast Group also operated several WB affiliates with local news departments: Raleigh's WLFL was the only WB affiliate that the company owned which had an existing news operation at the time it joined the network (WLFL began producing a 10:00 p.m. newscast as a Fox affiliate in 1992, six years before it joined The WB); Sinclair's Tampa, Buffalo, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Las Vegas and Norfolk WB affiliates began producing their own newscasts through Sinclair's local/national hybrid news format News Central in the early 2000s. The news departments of all seven of those stations were shut down in 2006 due to companywide cutbacks in Sinclair's news operations and the discontinuance of News Central. Of the former WB affiliates that produced newscasts during their affiliation with the network, only WGN-TV, WPIX, KTLA, KDAF and KIAH (all of whom became affiliates of The CW) continue to maintain self-supporting news departments (KPLR and KWGN respectively merged their news departments with those of Fox affiliates KTVI and KDVR through a 2008 management agreement between Tribune and Local TV, while WLVI's news department was shut down after Tribune sold the station to Sunbeam Television in 2006, with production of its 10:00 p.m. newscast taken over by new sister station WHDH).

In most markets, the local WB affiliate either outsourced news programming to an NBC, ABC or CBS station in the market (either due to insufficient funds for production of their own newscasts or in later years after the FCC permitted duopolies in markets with at least eight unique station owners in 2000, the station being operated through a legal duopoly or operational agreement with a major network affiliate) or opted to carry syndicated programming in the hour following The WB's primetime programming. As with Fox affiliates, WB-affiliated stations whose newscasts were produced by a same-market competitor tended to have fewer programming hours devoted to news than the station producing the broadcasts.

Affiliates
In 2005, The WB had an estimated audience reach of 91.66% of all U.S. households (equivalent to 90,282,480 households with at least one television set); the network was carried by 177 VHF and UHF stations in the United States. The WB was also available in Canada on cable and satellite providers through affiliates that are located within proximity to the Canada–US border (whose broadcasts of WB shows were subject to simultaneous substitution rules imposed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to protect program rights held by a domestically based network), and through two affiliates owned by Tribune Broadcasting (WPIX in New York City and KTLA in Los Angeles) that are classified in that country as superstations, as well as the superstation feed of Chicago affiliate WGN-TV.

Station standardization
When The WB launched in 1995, the network began branding most of its affiliates with a combination of "WB" or "The WB," and the station's channel number. This meant that, for example, New York City affiliate WPIX and St. Louis affiliate KPLR-TV were both referred to as "The WB11" and "WB11" respectively (though WPIX branded as "The WB, Channel 11" until 1996, and KPLR as its pre-affiliation brand "St. Louis 11" until 1998). Fox originated such naming schemes, and CBS uses similar on-air branding for most of its owned-and-operated stations (NBC and ABC also utilize similar, but less extreme, naming schemes). While Fox and UPN mandated their respective branding schemes on all of their stations, The WB did not. Therefore, other WB affiliates opted to use non-standardized brandings: WGN-TV in Chicago branded as "WGN Channel 9" (or simply "WGN") with The WB's logo placed within the right curve of the station's "9 as an upside-down G" logo after the network launched, and next to a boxed "9" from 2002 to 2006.

Most of the Tribune Company's WB affiliates only used the network's logo within the logos of each station or used the "WB" name after the callsign in its on-air branding (an example was Los Angeles affiliate KTLA, which branded as "KTLA, The WB", after dropping its longstanding and genericized "Channel 5" brand in 1997). Many WB affiliates used another form of standardized branding: the network's Lakeland, Florida, affiliate (serving Tampa) acquired the WWWB call letters and branded on-air as "The WB 32" (it is now known as WMOR-TV). Other stations would take on a 'by city' branding approach (for example, KHWB in Houston was called "Houston's WB" and WLVI-TV in Boston was called "Boston's WB" – both used the "WB (channel number)" branding prior to incorporating the station's city of primary service during the final years of the network's run); some stations which followed this scheme used a regional name instead of a specific city (such as "Capital Region's WB" for WEWB in Albany, New York, or "Hawaii's WB" for KFVE in Honolulu, Hawaii), while others also incorporated the channel number (such as Philadelphia affiliate WPHL-TV as "Philadelphia's WB17", or Mobile, Alabama, affiliate WBPG as "The Gulf Coast's WB55"). Many stations affiliated with The WB 100+ Station Group also followed either one of these variations on "The City/Region's WB" scheme (though the group's cable-only affiliates also used fictional call signs).

title: The WB


text:
De Mol (TV series)

De Mol (The Mole) is a Belgian reality game show that originally aired from 6 December 1998 to 19 March 2000 and again from 19 January to 16 March 2003 on TV1 with Michiel Devlieger as host. A revival has aired since 1 February 2016 on VIER with Gilles De Coster as host. The show won the famous Rose d'Or award in 2000. The format has been licensed in 40 countries from all around the world.

Players in The Mole must work together to complete various physical and mental challenges to build up a significant prize for the winner. One of them, however, is "the Mole", a double agent hired by the producers to sabotage the efforts of the group. The Mole must be careful to avoid drawing too much suspicion to themself. Using journals, players must track vast amounts of data about the person(s) they suspect of being the Mole, such as seating positions, clothing colors, minor discussion topics, and so on. The quiz at the end of each episode tests players' knowledge of the Mole, and determines by lowest score (or slowest time, in the event of a tie) who is eliminated from the game.

Format
Each series of The Mole involves a group of 10 contestants. During each episode, the contestants participate in a number of challenges, each assigned a monetary value. However, one of these contestants has been selected by production to be the Mole; it's their job to try to prevent the other players from winning challenges without revealing themself to others. The Mole is told what challenges to expect, but not always how to sabotage them; they must decide whether to intervene and how they do so.

To eliminate someone, all contestants take a quiz (which consists of 20 questions) at the end of every episode regarding the identity of the Mole and their involvement in the previous activities. The player who scores the lowest on this quiz, or was slowest to answer in case of a tie, is eliminated from the game. When there are only three players remaining, including the mole, the winner of the game is the one that answers the most questions correctly on the final quiz. The final quiz is usually 30 questions.

While success in the challenges builds up potential winnings, it is also critical to stay in the game by scoring better than opponents on the quiz, usually by attempting to draw their suspicions of the Mole's identity toward oneself. Since the Mole must use subterfuge to misdirect attention from their attempts to derail the team, disingenuous attempts to emulate the Mole must be subtle, while still noticeable and suspicious.

Series overview

 * Notes

International versions
In total, over 50 series/seasons of The Mole have been broadcast around the world, since its inception in 1998 in Belgium.

Legend:
 * (4) Currently airing
 * (16) No longer airing

title: De Mol (TV series)