Network battles a stigma

There it was on the producer’s wish list: one actor’s name after another, accompanied by the badge of shame, “No UPN.”

As Jorge Reyes set about casting “Kevin Hill,” his upcoming UPN series about an ambitious lawyer/player-about-town who winds up caring for an orphaned baby, he couldn’t seem to get past the “you’ve got to be kidding” stage with Hollywood’s more desirable actors. No one wanted to touch the fifth-ranked network.

Then, somehow -- Reyes still hasn’t figured it out -- the script landed in the hands of an indisputably hot talent who immediately took to Kevin Hill’s “playboy, slightly homophobic, slightly male chauvinistic” character. It didn’t matter that Reyes had written the part with a white actor in mind; Taye Diggs really wanted to be Kevin Hill.

“To a lot of actors, there’s a certain stigma attached to UPN,” said Diggs, whose credits include the films “Chicago” and “How Stella Got Her Groove Back” and a stint on TV’s “Ally McBeal.” “But once I read the script, it became obvious that they are trying to turn themselves around and increase or broaden their viewership. With a show like this, I don’t care what network it’s on; it’s exactly the type of show I was wishing for.”

Another day, at the casting session for another new UPN show, “Veronica Mars,” actress Kristen Bell was drawn to the show’s lead character, a resilient teen detective who takes life’s knocks with unusual strength and poise. Then Bell, who recently guest-starred as a doomed swindler on “Deadwood,” noticed the “For UPN” note on the script.

“I hesitated,” admitted Bell, who is the first white lead actress on the network. “UPN hasn’t been looked at by actors as their first choice network. But I want to do good work no matter what medium, for the same reason I would do a brilliant play in a black box theater instead of a 2,000-seat Broadway house. This is not writing you’ve ever seen on UPN. It’s going to change the face of the network.”

At least that’s what Dawn Ostroff, who became UPN’s president of entertainment in 2002, is hoping for. A year after Ostroff announced her strategy for transforming the network, her work may be starting to pay off. Long considered the stepchild to parent CBS/Viacom, the 9-year-old network is finally turning some heads.

It came out of this spring’s presentations to advertisers in New York with a solid dose of media buzz and a $100-million bump in advance ad sales, to $350 million, thanks to 20 new advertisers including Procter & Gamble, Verizon and several health and beauty companies, according to JoAnn Ross, president of network sales.

With a bona fide returning hit in “America’s Next Top Model,” and a fall lineup that includes a smattering of A-list talent, UPN is following the trail pioneered by other onetime upstarts. In their infancies, Fox and the WB also relied on shows targeted for niche audiences -- African Americans in particular -- as their foundation. At Fox it was shows such as “New York Undercover” and “In Living Color”; at the WB, “The Parent ‘Hood” and “The Steve Harvey Show.” As their viewer base expanded -- Fox’s audience has aged while the WB has become more family-oriented -- executives went after broader audiences. As it makes its move, UPN presents an interesting window on the delicate racial politics and creative balancing acts of network broadcasting.

“We look at our network as being multicultural,” said Ostroff, who was executive vice president of entertainment at cable’s Lifetime channel before she joined UPN. “Right now in America, one-third of the 18- to- 34-year-old population is minority. Not only is it important to represent them on television, but it’s important to represent what their lives are like.”

As for the creative side of the process, “We now have excellent people developing for us, and they all have been instrumental in bringing the caliber of writers and actors that we have now,” Ostroff said. “We came into this year’s pilot season as the underdog, but our image is changing.”

Image is one thing. Audiences are another.

Whether UPN can capitalize on its newfound cachet and significantly broaden its viewer mix is a big open question. Its current audience is --mostly African Americans with wrestling fanatics, Trekkies and some action movie fans thrown in. (Then there’s the question of scale. According to Nielsen Media Research, CBS, the most-watched network, this season is averaging prime-time audiences of 12.3 million; UPN draws 3.2 million.)

The grail for UPN: the young white viewers so beloved by advertisers -- not the easiest proposition for a network long pegged as “urban,” which is Hollywood doublespeak for all things black or hip-hop.

“They’re infusing the network with more crossover-type casting and they’re in a youth movement and a number of other things that traditionally serve to broaden audiences,” said Doug Alligood, senior vice president of special markets for the advertising firm BBDO Worldwide. “My attitude is wait and see. I haven’t seen a demographic skew with that network whatsoever. They have virtually no white audience at all.”

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Banks leads the charge

What no one imagined is that it would take a black supermodel with a reality show to lead the crossover charge. Created, produced and hosted by Tyra Banks, “America’s Next Top Model” is UPN’s No. 1 program, has more viewers than any show on the WB and attracts more 18- to 34-year-old viewers than ABC’s top sitcom, “8 Simple Rules.” But even more notable is that among its 6.3 million viewers, the largest group, 2.9 million, is white.

The show, which offers an inside look into the not-as-glamorous-as-it-appears world of modeling -- from catwalks to cat fights to nude photo shoots to a contestant’s hot-tub infidelity -- places 10 women of diverse backgrounds in a Manhattan apartment to live together as they compete for a modeling contract.

“I wanted my show to be a multicultural show, and I knew that I wasn’t pigeon-holing myself by going to UPN,” said Banks, who is producing the third cycle and has signed on for a fourth. “I knew that I have that strength in myself and that the show would speak to everyone.”

This fall, “America’s Next Top Model” will air Wednesdays at 8 p.m. as the lead-in to “Kevin Hill.” Set in New York City, “Kevin Hill” is a fast-moving family and legal drama, revolving around a hotshot entertainment lawyer and coveted bachelor whose world turns upside down when a new girl enters his life: his deceased cousin’s 6-month-old daughter. The character of Kevin Hill is based on Reyes’ cousin who became a single father when his girlfriend abandoned their baby, and his brother, Kevin, a New York cop “who is selfish in regard to his relationships. Yeah, he’s a player. You can print that,” Reyes joked.

The first episode’s rich soundtrack features hits from the Black Eyed Peas, Stevie Wonder, OutKast, Britney Spears and Norah Jones. Its multicultural cast reflects the city and environment of its characters as well as a lesson its creator well understands but apparently was gleaned by UPN executives just last year when they first tried to break out a high-end drama.

“Networks need to realize that multicultural shows don’t have to be thematically about being multicultural,” said Reyes, 30, a Buffalo, N.Y., native of Puerto Rican descent. “Both Taye and I had said independently that we didn’t want to do shows that were too urban. I think what we both meant is that we wanted a show that was inclusive, which is what we have now.”

Last year, the network launched “Platinum,” about two entrepreneurial brothers who ran a hip-hop music label, which was produced by John Ridley, Sofia Coppola and Francis Ford Coppola. Even though the show garnered critical acclaim, viewers rejected it and UPN canceled it after six episodes.

Ostroff, who admits “Platinum” did not have the crossover appeal she hoped for because of its hip-hop slant, said she is encouraged by the trends she sees in her No. 1 show, “America’s Next Top Model.” “Kevin Hill,” with its diverse cast and characters that include a gay male nanny, and “Veronica Mars,” which is set in a typical white suburban beach town, offer “broader, more relatable topics,” she said.

For Reyes and Rob Thomas, the creator of “Veronica Mars,” the opportunity to lend new and distinct voices to UPN outweighs any disadvantages associated with a network that is still developing its identity. “Veronica Mars,” which will air at 9 p.m. Tuesdays in the fall, is unlike any show that has previously aired on the network. Set in the fictional Southern California beach town of Neptune, the character-driven mystery centers on a postmodern Nancy Drew type, a strong-willed 17-year-old-girl who learns to become a private eye from her father after tragic events alter their family.

Thomas, who conceived his character for a teen novel he never wrote, hopes “Veronica Mars” will pop for UPN the way that “21 Jump Street” changed Fox in 1987 and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” boosted the WB in 1997.

“Those shows put those networks on the map,” said Thomas, a young adult novelist who was a staff writer for “Dawson’s Creek.” “On UPN, you have a chance to survive because they will give the show a chance to grow and have a fair share in the marketplace. The down side is that a top show at NBC has 24 million viewers and a top show at UPN has [6] million.”

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Loyalty to African Americans

Even with the diversity of UPN’s new faces -- Jenny McCarthy and Sophina Brown will team in “The Bad Girl’s Guide,” a midseason sitcom -- UPN will not turn its back on its African American audience. Real-life couple Boris Kodjoe and Nicole Parker will star in a new fall sitcom, “Second Time Around.” In January, hip-hop artist Missy Elliott will unveil a reality talent competition, “The Road to Stardom With Missy Elliott,” which is sure to be edgier than, say, “American Idol.”

When Mona Scott, Elliott’s manager, sold the show for the rapper, she considered other networks but settled on UPN because it was the only one she believed would not endanger the hip-hop star’s credibility.

“I believed they would give us the creative freedom to do the kind of show that wouldn’t infringe upon or affect Missy’s core fan base,” Scott said. “As Missy moves into different mediums, if I compromise what I know is best for her to satisfy a network or a studio’s sensibility, I could totally damage her.”

“The Road to Stardom With Missy Elliott” will follow 13 contestants from several music genres as they go on tour with the artist and learn what taking an act on the road entails. The prize is a recording contract on Elliott’s label.

“If you want to be an artist who has longevity and is an icon, there’s a lot more to it than the glamour and the glitz,” said Elliott, who just completed an international tour. “You have to have drive.”

And maybe a little luck. Reyes says he realizes he is as much of a gamble for the network as UPN is for Hollywood’s most sought-after writers and actors. He hasn’t forgotten that no other network was even willing to listen to his pitch for “Kevin Hill.”

“Mine is not a voice you’ve heard on television,” said Reyes, formerly a writer for Showtime’s “Resurrection Boulevard.” “I still feel like I’m really a lucky guy and everything is going to get taken away because it’s too good to be true. But then, it doesn’t hurt to have the black Cary Grant.”

Or that he had nothing against UPN.

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Times staff writer Maria Elena Fernandez can be reached at maria.elena.fernandez@latimes.com.