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The CW Plus is a national feed of The CW Television Network, owned by The CW Network, LLC (a joint venture between Time Warner and CBS Corporation, which each maintain a 50% ownership interest),〔 that is primarily carried on digital subchannels and non-broadcast cable television outlets. The service is intended for areas ranked below the top 99 television markets in the United States designated by Nielsen Media Research. In addition to carrying CW network programming on Monday through Fridays in daytime and prime time, as well as its Saturday morning educational programming block, The CW Plus runs a mix of syndicated and brokered programs outside of designated network programming time periods. The CW handles programming and promotional services for The CW Plus at its corporate headquarters in Burbank, California (marketing services were handled through a separate division for the service until March 2008, when these operations were transferred to The CW's marketing department due to layoffs imposed by the network); centralcasting operations for the CW Plus affiliates are hubbed at the California Video Center in Los Angeles. ==Background== One of the predecessors of The CW, The WB Television Network had maintained a similar group of cable-only affiliate stations in small- and select medium-sized markets called The WB 100+ Station Group, which began operations on September 21, 1998 and continued to operate until The WB ended operations on September 17, 2006. On February 24, 2006, one month after CBS Corporation and Time Warner announced the launch of the new network, The CW formally released a proposal to prospective affiliates announcing the creation of The CW Plus, a similar single-network feed for smaller markets – covering the same areas that were served by The WB 100+. While there was no guarantee that existing affiliates of The WB 100+ would automatically join The CW Plus, most of them (particularly cable-only affiliates) ultimately did join the new service, and programming transitioned seamlessly from The WB 100+ to The CW Plus. Since The WB 100+ was created before digital television was easily available in the United States, most WB 100+ stations were distributed exclusively via cable, with a few main channel affiliations on over-the-air broadcast stations.〔〔 With its launch, The CW (along with MyNetworkTV) became among the first conventional broadcast networks in the U.S. to fully utilize digital multicasting to gain over-the-air coverage in markets that did not have enough television stations to maintain a traditional main channel affiliation (Fox, The WB and fellow CW predecessor UPN had a few subchannel-only affiliates shortly before The CW launched, however over-the-air distribution in this manner was very limited at the time). In several markets served by a CW Plus station, the current affiliate may not be the same as the prior WB 100+ affiliate. Some CW Plus affiliates are carried on a digital subchannel of a local broadcast station, whereas the prior affiliate of The WB 100+ was cable-exclusive; certain cable-only affiliates of The WB 100+ have been replaced completely by either a subchannel or main channel over-the-air affiliation when The CW launched, or joined The CW Plus only for a broadcast station that managed or acquired it to begin carrying it over-the-air at some point after its launch. As with The WB 100+, CW Plus programming is delivered through a data server network that originally digitally transmitted local and national advertisements, promos, station identifications and customized logo bugs for each individual affiliate to headends within the master control facilities of a local station or the offices of the cable provider operating the local affiliate. Programming is relayed to a wireless PC-based system that downloads (through a data feed distributed via satellite), stores and inserts advertising during program breaks controlled via a playlist over the satellite-delivered national feed to the individual affiliate's home market; the units also transfer program feeds via address headers disseminated to each affiliate based on their call letters, transmit advertisements and program promotions, and generate a log of ads that have previously aired. The cost of these units are partially reimbursed by The CW, with no more than 50% of the purchase cost paid by the affiliate. Affiliates sent logfiles of local advertisements over the Internet to a traffic management system located at The CW's corporate offices in Burbank, which handles trafficking, dissemination of the program feed and specified local insertion of advertisements and promotions to each affiliate. After The CW stopped providing support for the traffic system and commercial server in September 2009, responsibility for ad trafficking and insertion was transferred to The CW Plus' individual affiliates, although The CW continues to handle programming and transmission operations. CW Plus stations are generally managed and promoted by a local affiliate of a larger over-the-air television station, which may produce some local programming (such as morning and/or prime time newscasts), telecasts of local sports events, or syndicated national sports broadcasts from either ESPN Regional Television, the ACC Network or the American Sports Network; some affiliates, however, are operated by a local cable provider. CW Plus affiliates each have their own local branding, which is usually a combination of the "The CW" name with either the parent station/cable franchise's city of license or a regional descriptor of the area (such as "Northland" for Duluth and northeastern Minnesota, as seen in the logo to the above left). Unlike its predecessor, The WB 100+ Station Group, The CW Plus does not use call signs used solely for branding and/or supplementary identification purposes in a widespread fashion; while many cable-only WB 100+-turned-CW Plus affiliates have stopped using fictional call signs (which were not assigned by the Federal Communications Commission, as the agency does not issue licenses to cable channels), a few have continued to use the ones they had used while part of The WB 100+ Station Group, mainly doing so merely for identification purposes in local Nielsen diary-tabulated ratings reports. The CW Plus originally maintained a separate website featuring promotions for CW network programs, search maps for CW Plus affiliates, programming schedules customizable to an affiliate's local time zone, and still promotional ads for CW network shows and syndicated programs seen on the CW Plus feed. In May 2014, YourCWTV.com was discontinued as a standalone website, redirecting to The CW's main website at CWTV.com. However, the websites of all CW Plus affiliates continue to be hosted on the YourCWTV.com domain, featuring much of the aforementioned content seen on the national website; as well as links to websites and social media pages operated by the affiliate or a parent over-the-air station, and links to the affiliate's contact information, advertising services and (where applicable) the main website of a parent broadcast affiliate. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「The CW Plus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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