[Medianext.MX]

Can't believe MyNetworkTV is still going.  Didn't they launch around the same time (when WB and UPN merging left stations not becoming the CW looking for a network) with a stripped nightly telenovela strategy which failed spectacularly?

True story. It was a Fox attempt to cash on the WB-UPN merger. Fox had UPN affiliates in many major markets (including NY, LA and Chicago), however, Tribune signed a deal with the CW to affiliate their WB stations with the new network. Fox surprised by quickly forming MNTV just one month after the CW's announcement, as a "contingency plan" (according to Roger Ailes); the telenovela schedule, the brainchild of then-20th Television programming chief Paul Buccieri, was set to be initially distributed in syndication, but these were eventually reformatted and redirected to the new "network". It launched two weeks before the CW's formal launch.

It has operated mostly as a "programming service", given it never aired programming outside prime time. After two seasons airing lower profile reality shows, movies and sports rights (plus WWE SmackDown between 2008-2010), MNTV switched to the Ion model of cheap off-network syndication series.