The WN

Western Network

1988-1992

LOGO MISSING

The WN was originally founded as the Western Network, a general entertainment television network devoted to broadcasts in the Western States region of America (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming), which launched on November 7, 1988 by Lust Television Group, a subsidiary of Danish publishing company Lust Incorporated. After Lust merged with Singapore-based mass media company I-World (which owned rival network UWN), to form Premiere Holdings in early 1990, Western Network was sold on February 19 of that year to a company led by several of I-World's longtime employee-investors and Lust's investor, WN-I Lust Communications Group.

The WN

1992-1999

LOGO MISSING

On October 5, 1992, Western Network shortened its name and branding to its current The WN and reformatted as a syndicated television service, a first in American television history. WN-I Lust cited the name change as the network is now available on several over-the-air stations and most television cable service providers nationwide.

1999-2009

LOGO MISSING

In July 1999, two months after the network sold all of its owned stations to Apollo Global Management (through its subsidiary The WN Television Group) and as part of a network restructuring, The WN adopted its current branding "WN" (without the addition of the word The) and returned to a general entertainment network, featuring the acquired programming recent and older as well as some retained syndicated programming. On November 20, 2004, American television network MBN (which had been acquired by Medianow Corporation in 2002) purchased The WN from WN-I Lust Communications Group. 4 months later, MBN purchased The WN Television Group from Apollo Global on March 14, 2005, marking The WN's return to ownership of its O&O stations.

2009-present

2009-2019

2019-present

On May 20, 2024, it was announced that Medianow would sell The WN along with its O&O stations to ComMedia, which was in the process of selling its broadcast division ComMedia Television Networks. After ComMedia exited the deal in July, the network was instead sold to Independent System Company (a group of network employee-investors led by Billy O'Connell and Amy Tety Roxas), which was completed on August 5, 2024.