The CW Launching Wednesday

Rick Haskins, marketing chief for the fledgling CW network, does more than talk about reaching prospective viewers one at a time.

At a recent CW promotion at a Los Angeles mall, Haskins volunteered to help operate a 300-degree-plus decal machine printing network slogans onto free T-shirts for an unexpectedly big crowd of several thousand.

Each phrase represented a CW show -- "Free To Be Witty" for "Gilmore Girls," "Free To Be Super" for "Smallville" -- and each shirt was integral to an innovative effort to sell a new network that's, ironically, built mostly with recycled parts.

As Haskins sees it, the venture being forged from the WB and UPN is more than the ...