abc family

ABC Family is an American cable television network currently owned by Disney-ABC Television Group, a division of The Walt Disney Company. ABC Family offers contemporary and inclusive programming, including series, movies, events, and enhanced ABC encore presentations. It was originally known as The Family Channel, until August 15, 1998 when it was purchased by News Corp. and renamed Fox Family. In November 2001, it was then sold to The Walt Disney Company, who bought the rights to the Fox Kids Library, Haim Saban's Saban Entertainment and Fox Family.

As of March 2008, the network is available in 95,680,000 American households (84.82 percent tv coverage).[citation needed]

Not to be confused with the Canadian television channel Family Channel. Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 Beginning 1.2 Change 1.3 Today 2 Programming 2.1 ABC Family Original Movies 2.2 Sports 2.3 Holiday programming 2.3.1 13 Nights of Halloween 2.3.2 25 Days of Christmas 2.4 Programming blocks 2.4.1 Jetix 2.4.2 The XYZ 3 References 4 See also 5 External links //

History

Beginning See also: Television networks preceding ABC Family

ABC Family launched on November 10, 2001 after Fox Family was sold to ABC for $3.2 billion in July 2001. The sale to ABC included the Fox Kids Network (a joint venture of Fox and Haim Saban) which provided the new ABC Family with hours of children's programming. [1]

The sale to ABC, owned by Disney, was considered one of the largest mistakes or problems occurring during the tenure of Michael Eisner. The failure was primarily due to the acquisition being done by the strategic planning department of Disney, without consulting anyone at ABC. The original plan was to use the channel to essentially show re-runs of ABC programming, but this plan was completely impossible since ABC had no syndication rights to the majority of their own programs. During this time, the network did air same-season repeats of Alias, Less Than Perfect, Life with Bonnie, and The Bachelor, almost all of which were Touchstone Television productions (The Bachelor is distributed by Time Warner's Telepictures). But in trying to change the focus of the channel, Disney also cancelled several Fox Family series, like State of Grace, and cut back on the network's TV movies, which were among the few programs Fox Family was doing well with. The ratings tumbled further as the network became dependent on syndicated reruns and no original programs (save for original wrap-around segments around Bachelor repeats, and children's programming). [2]

The next major plan was to reposition the channel to market it to college students, young women, or to a more hip audience