ABC Family Worldwide

ABC Family Worldwide is a division of the Disney–ABC Television Group that is responsible for the operations of the U.S. cable network Freeform.

The company was originally formed as International Family Entertainment, a spin-out of the Christian Broadcasting Network's cable network The Family Channel. In 1993, IFE acquired the assets of defunct British ITV broadcaster Television South, whose holdings included the library of U.S. studio MTM Enterprises.

In 1997, IFE was acquired by News Corporation; the MTM library was melded into 20th Century Fox Television's library, while the remainder was melded into Fox Kids Worldwide (a merger of its Fox Kids unit with Saban Entertainment), to form Fox Family Worldwide (likewise, The Family Channel would be re-named Fox Family Channel). Under Fox ownership, the subsidiary also established international networks in Europe and Latin America,

The division was later sold to its current owner, The Walt Disney Company, in 2001 for $5.3 billion, which gave Disney ownership of the channel, then known as ABC Family, the international Fox Kids channels (which were later re-branded as Jetix, and then Disney XD), and rights to the Saban Entertainment library. The subsidiary has since been amalgamated into the Disney-ABC Television Group.

History

International Family Entertainment

The company has its origins in Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network; the religious broadcaster had re-positioned its CBN Satellite Service, which primarily carried televangelism, as the CBN Cable Network, which carried a mixture of family entertainment programming and religious programs. Owing to its new scope, the service was later renamed the CBN Family Channel.^[1]

By the 1990's, the network had become too profitable to remain under the ownership of the non-profit CBN without legal repercussions; a decision was made to spin-out the CBN Family Channel into a new for-profit company, International Family Entertainment. It would be owned by Pat Robertson's son, Timothy Robertson, and operated as a joint venture between the Robertsons and John C. Malone (owner of Denver-based cable television provider Tele-Communications Inc. and multimedia firm Liberty Media) for $250 million in convertible securities. The Robertsons paid $150,000 to acquire 4.5 million shares and a controlling ownership interest in IFE, with Pat and Tim subsequently purchasing an additional 1.5 million shares. After the spin-out, the CBN Family Channel was re-named to simply The Family Channel.^[2] As a stipulation of the spin-out, The Family Channel was required to maintain daily airings of CBN's flagship television program The 700 Club.^[3]

In June 1993, prior to its launch, IFE sold a 39% stake in a British version of The Family Channel to local company Flextech.^[4] In October, IFE also acquired the library of Television South, a former ITV franchisee in Southern England, for $68.5 million; its holdings included the library of MTM Enterprises.^[5] Flextech would later buy out IFE's share in The Family Channel UK,^[6] which then became the game show-oriented channel Challenge.

In December 1993, IFE opened a bidding war to acquire the Nostalgia Network, against a partnership of Florida-based MOR Music TV Inc. and Arizona-based Gen-She Inc., and part-owner Concept Communications (owned by the Unification Church).^[7]

Fox Family Worldwide

In 1996, News Corporation's Fox Children's Productions and Haim Saban's Saban Entertainment merged to form Fox Kids Worldwide.^{[8][9][10][11]} With the growing shift in children's television from over-the-air programming blocks to cable channels such as Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, the two companies sought to launch a competitor that would carry programming from the popular Fox Kids lineup.^[12] Eying The Family Channel, News Corp. made an offer to purchase IFE through the joint venture in 1997.^[12][13]

Viacom and Disney made competing offers for IFE; Viacom dropped out of bidding, and News Corp. offered $1.8 billion.^[14] News Corp. won with a bid of $1.9 billion. The acquisition closed on June 11, 1997; IFE was folded into Fox Kids Worldwide, which itself was re-named Fox Family Worldwide.^{[15][8][9][16][17]} On August 15, 1998, The Family Channel was renamed Fox Family Channel;^[18] Fox continued to be subject to the mandate that The 700 Club be broadcast by the network.^[12] Rights to the MTM Enterprises library were folded into 20th Century Fox Television.^[19]

In October 1996, a Fox Kids channel was launched in the United Kingdom. In November 1999, Fox Kids Europe was formed, with 75.7% being held by Fox Family Worldwide, and the remainder listed on the Euronext.^[20]

In the face of struggling performance at the Fox Family channel, Saban attempted to force News Corp. to sell it its share in the joint venture, but were unable to agree in a proper valuation. The ensuing conflict resulted in the two companies deciding to sell Fox Family Worldwide to a third-party. At the time, Fox was also preparing to acquire Hughes Electronics, the parent company of television provider DirecTV.^[21][22]

Acquisition by Disney

On October 24, 2001, The Walt Disney Company acquired Fox Family Worldwide for $2.9 billion cash plus $2.3 billion in debt assumption, which gave Disney control of the Fox Family channel (which, owing to its new ownership, was re-named ABC Family, and its parent company re-named ABC Family Worldwide), the Saban Entertainment library, the Fox Kids networks in Latin America and Europe,^[22] as well as additional cable rights to Major League Baseball that were assigned to Fox Family via the Fox Sports division, which included a slate of Thursday-night regular season games, and Division Series games.^[23] ESPN assumed the production responsibilities for these games, although they continued to air on ABC Family for the time being (along with over-the-air television stations in the local markets of the teams involved in the case of playoff games).^{[24][23][8][9][25][26]}

The Fox network's Fox Kids programming block was not included in the sale; in the interim, responsibility for the block was shifted to the Fox Television Entertainment division. As a consequence of having lost rights to the Saban programming that anchored the Fox Kids block, and no longer having appropriate synergies due to the sale of Fox Family, Fox announced in January 2002 that it would discontinue Fox Kids, and enter into an agreement with 4Kids Entertainment under which it would program a new block.^[27][28]

In October 2003, ABC Family Worldwide was amalgamated into the ABC Cable Networks Group run by Anne Sweeney.^[29] In January 2004, Fox Kids Europe, Fox Kids Latin America and the ABC Cable Group launched a new joint brand for their children's television operations, Jetix, which would be used to brand programming blocks which aired on ABC Family and Toon Disney, its television channels in Europe and Latin America, along with its programm library and merchandising.^{[30][31][32][30][33]}

On December 8, 2008, Disney reached an agreement to increase its ownership in Jetix Europe to 96%, and announced an intent to purchase the remainder to give it full ownership.^[34] Following its takeover of Jetix Europe, Disney began migrating the Jetix properties in the region to a new brand, Disney XD.^[35] In 2009, Switchover Media—a company formed by the management of the Italian Jetix operation, acquired the K2 and GXT networks from Disney, and managed the Italian Jetix channel until its re-branding as Disney XD.^[36][37] In August 2010, Saban Capital Group, the successor to Saban Entertainment, bought back the rights to the Power Rangers franchise (which had been acquired by Disney through the purchase of Saban's library via Fox Family Worldwide) from Disney for $43 million.^[38]

On March 24, 2012, the ABC Family division took control of Soapnet as part of the wind-down of the service in favor of Disney Junior.^[39][40]

ABC Family was renamed Freeform on January 12, 2016.^[41]

References