It's been two months since I first heard Dawn Ostroff utter the words "content wraps" at the New York upfront for the new CW network, but darned if I don't think of a sandwich every time the subject comes up.

The CW's here today, trying to explain yet again: 1) why it resurrected "7th Heaven" and brought back "One Tree Hill" but canceled "Everwood" (answer: "agonizing decision," "ratings," blah-blah-blah) and 2) what a "content wrap" is.

The latter's a little more complicated, but all it means is that they'll occasionally be running commercials that look like mini-shows and air during commercial breaks. It would be pretty to think that these would play out like the Taster's Choice commercials of a few years back, the ones that introduced Anthony Stewart Head before some of us saw him play the Watcher on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Sadly, the sample the CW showed advertisers in May -- and rerolled for critics here after so many complained they didn't have a clue -- looks more like a cheap cable dating show in which two CW viewers meet on the network's online site, get a makeover using sponsors' products and then go on a date, all in the breaks in the action on, say, "Gilmore Girls" and "Veronica Mars."

Of course, that's just an example. But you'd think they'd come up with a good example, at least.

You'd think that they'd also come up with a better name than "content wraps," but then the initials wouldn't be CW, a network title that no one seems to like but which we seem to be stuck with.

At one point, a reporter from Iowa noted that in his market, "CW" still means "country western," and added that it didn't help that the new net's signature color was "John Deere green."

Ostroff thinks John Deere green's a bit darker, but no one seems to agree on what to call the CW green, which seems to come in varying shades but is probably not meant to evoke memories of the late, lamented WB mascot Michigan J. Frog, whose unexpected death made news a few press tours ago.

Amazingly, though the deal that merged UPN and the WB took zillions of lawyers, the name continued to be debated in-house for some time after the announcement, Ostroff indicated.

What sealed the deal, apparently, was the huge amount of publicity the merger announcement got and the discovery that "CW" already had significant name recognition.

"We were shocked," Ostroff admitted. But at that point, "it would have cost us tens of millions of dollars" to have changed it.