WB Will Move Comedies to Thursday Nights in Fall

Having struggled fruitlessly to establish sitcoms on Sunday nights, the WB network will move its comedy lineup to Thursdays opposite NBC’s sitcom block in the fall, while shifting the established dramas “Charmed” and “Angel” to Sundays.

Relocating “Angel” opens a slot after the WB’s top-rated program, “7th Heaven,” to launch what the network considers its most promising drama, “Everwood,” starring Treat Williams as a widowed surgeon who chucks his life in Manhattan and moves his family to the fictional small town of Everwood, Colo.

It’s one of six new series that will premiere on the network, which will officially present its revised prime-time schedule today to advertisers in New York, including a revival of the 1960s comedy “Family Affair,” with Gary Cole and Tim Curry in the roles played by Brian Keith and Sebastian Cabot, respectively. That series will go up against NBC’s “Friends,” followed by “Do Over,” one of two new series set for the fall (the other being ABC’s “That Was Then”) that involves a grown man going back in time to reexperience his teenage years.

Continuing the WB’s teen orientation, Nickelodeon star Amanda Bynes will star in a new sitcom, “What I Like About You,” which will lead off Fridays. The WB has also ordered “Greetings From Tucson,” about a family in which the father is Latino and the mother is Irish, told from the perspective of their teenage son.

After achieving success this year with the Superboy series “Smallville,” the network will try another superhero concept from DC Comics (like the WB, a unit of AOL Time Warner) with “Birds of Prey,” about a trio of female heroes. (The WB is also partly owned by Tribune Co., which owns the Los Angeles Times.)

The WB will open Sundays with reruns from the first season of “Gilmore Girls,” having previously employed a similar strategy that helped establish “7th Heaven” early in its run.

The network has dropped the sitcom “Raising Dad,” starring Bob Saget, as well as “Maybe It’s Me,” “Nikki” and “Felicity,” which will air its finale next week. “The Steve Harvey Show” also finished its run earlier this year.

The WB spreads 13 hours of original programming across six nights, compared with 22 hours on the three major networks and 15 on Fox.

Here is the WB’s fall schedule (new programs are in italics):

Sunday: “Gilmore Girls” reruns, “Charmed,” “Angel.”

Monday: “7th Heaven,” “Everwood.”

Tuesday: “Gilmore Girls,” “Smallville.”

Wednesday: “Dawson’s Creek,” “Birds of Prey.”

Thursday: “Family Affair,” “Do Over,” “JKX: The Jamie Kennedy Experiment,” “Off Centre.”

Friday: “What I Like About You,” “Sabrina,” “Reba,” “Greetings From Tucson.”