This article explains why and in what way The WB Television Network was able to establish and popularize coming-of-age teen dramedies in the US television landscape at the end of the 1990s. The aim of the paper is on the one hand to illustrate the extent to which creative developments are based on economic exploitation strategies and competition, legal frameworks, but also on specific biographies of individual actors and changes in media technology. On the other hand, it will be shown that WB series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer (USA 1997–2003) or Dawson’s Creek (USA 1998–2003) have been testing and establishing aesthetic, narrative and transmedial forms and strategies that can still be found in many youth series today.