History of Freeform
American cable and satellite television network Freeform was originally launched as the CBN Satellite Service on April 29, 1977, and has gone through 4 different owners and 6 different name changes during its history. This article details the network's existence from its founding by the Christian Broadcasting Network to its current ownership by The Walt Disney Company, which renamed the network to Freeform on January 12, 2016.
CBN Satellite Service
The network was founded by
On September 1, 1981, the channel was relaunched as the CBN Cable Network. At that time of the name change, it was concurrently repositioned as an advertiser-supported "family-friendly" entertainment network, although the channel continued to offer religious programs that occupied about a third of its daily schedule. Entertainment programming that aired on the channel during this period included various classic television series (consisting of classic sitcoms from the 1950s and
The network also aired – and was even involved in the production of a few of them – a handful of Christian or family-friendly animated series, including some
The channel's decision to mix secular and religious programs within its schedule mirrored the programming format used by the
The Family Channel
On August 1, 1988, the word "Family" was incorporated into the channel's name to better reflect its programming format,
As a stipulation of the sale to International Family Entertainment, the channel was required to continue to carry The 700 Club (a stipulation that Pat Robertson also imposed when the channel was sold to Fox Family Worldwide in 1997 and then to The Walt Disney Company in 2001).[1][5] This time-buy clause (which also mandates that the program air at suitable time slots that would allow it to attract decent viewership) was the only requirement that Robertson included in sales terms for the network to its subsequent owners. However, public assumption had conflated for many years that this sole existing stipulation was one of two that he included following the sale of the network by CBN; another contractual clause that Robertson was alleged to have added in the sale agreement to Fox required any future secular owners to maintain the word "Family" in the network's name in perpetuity. When Disney announced on October 6, 2015, that it would rebrand the network as Freeform, ABC Family president Tom Ascheim noted that there was no record of such a clause ever having been in place (although some published sources – including a reference in James B. Stewart's book on former chairman/CEO Michael Eisner's tenure at eventual owner Disney, DisneyWar – have only stated insofar that a clause including "Family" as a required part of the name was incorporated into previous carriage agreements for the channel with cable and satellite providers).[6][7][8]
By 1989, the channel was seen in 47.3 million households, with its distribution jumping to 54 million homes (or 92% of all U.S. households with a cable television subscription) by 1992.
On September 11, 1989, The CBN Family Channel launched "Fun Town," a daily children's program block featuring content from DIC Enterprises. Under its programming deal with the company, DIC also planned to produce four specials per quarter that would air on the channel, including holiday specials and a film version of the animated series The New Archies; however, DIC never produced any specials for the channel.[12]
In March 1992, the Christian Broadcasting Network sold its interest in International Family Entertainment, when the company announced plans to become
That year, International Family Entertainment and
The network gained more visibility when, for a four-year period from 1994 to 1997, it served as the primary sponsor of
Fox Family
Purchase by Fox Kids Worldwide
In early 1997,
The Family Channel was renamed Fox Family Channel – though on-air promotions typically referred to the network as just "Fox Family" – on August 15, 1998.[29][30] With the change in ownership, Fox Family's operations were also migrated from the Christian Broadcasting Network's headquarters in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and integrated with the operations of some of News Corporation's other cable channels in Los Angeles at the Fox Network Center (located on the 20th Century Fox backlot in Century City). The MTM Enterprises library was assumed by 20th Television.[31]
Early programming
When Fox purchased the channel, programmers sought to reposition it to target a dual audience: children in daytime, families at night. Once the network became Fox Family, the new owners dropped nearly all of the programming that it aired under The Family Channel brand – which at that point included reruns of series such as Batman, Bonanza, The Rifleman, The Carol Burnett Show, Hawaii Five-O, Christy, Rescue 911 and Diagnosis: Murder – and replaced them with shows that appealed to a younger demographic. Rich Cronin, who was appointed as the network's president and CEO, said regarding the channel's audience refocusing, "our focus is on younger families, more suburban or urban, more plugged into pop culture".[32][33] Fox Family was obligated to continue airing The 700 Club as part of the sale, but the program's airings were scaled back to two times each day (though the sale agreement required the channel to air it three times daily,[34] once each in the morning, late-evening and overnight hours), with the evening broadcast being moved out of prime time, and pushed one hour later to 11:00 p.m. Eastern Time (from 10:00 p.m.). Programming that appealed to children and teenagers was also greatly expanded on the channel. Fox Family added more animated series to the lineup, many of which came from the Fox Kids program library.[29] At launch, Fox Family had four themed kids daytime blocks: "Morning Scramble" (all ages), "The Captain's Treasure House" (pre-schoolers), "Tic Tac Toons" (all-animation; this block was renamed to "Toon-A Casserole" by the time the channel relaunched) and "The Basement".[30] Original series were programmed from six to nine at night targeting adults followed by a movie. Original programming was beefed up by $500 million, to be spent on 20 original movies and 680 episodes of original series.[29]
In 1998, the company announced the launch of two digital networks spun-off from Fox Family - Boyz Channel and Girlz Channel, and both launched in October 1999. Both networks contained programming content targeted at the respective genders; both channels ceased operations after one year on the air in August 2000, due to a combination of very limited national carriage by cable providers (Boyz Channel and Girlz Channel were each carried in some 100,000 homes in an era when digital cable television was in its infancy) and the controversy that developed over the gender-segregated channels.[35][36]
Major League Baseball
In April 2000, Fox Family began airing Major League Baseball (MLB) games in prime time on most weeks during the league's regular season, on an alternating basis with sister network FX. The network – which acquired the rights from Fox Sports Net (FSN), which aired the weekly telecasts across its regional sports networks (except in markets where the nationally televised game conflicts with scheduled sporting events involving local teams on the individual FSN outlet) from 1997 to 1999 – usually ran the games on either Thursday or Saturday nights.
Starting with the 2001 season, the network also carried games from the first round of the MLB playoffs, the Division Series, which did not air on Fox. Among the games that aired on Fox Family included one between the San Francisco Giants and the Houston Astros on October 4, 2001, in which Barry Bonds hit his 70th home run of the season, tying the all-time single season record that Mark McGwire had set only three years earlier (Bonds would break the record the following night).
The 700 Club
As part of a stipulation negotiated into International Family Entertainment's sale agreement with Fox Entertainment Group by Pat Robertson, Fox Family aired The 700 Club twice every weekday: a live broadcast at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time, and a repeat at 11:00 p.m. Eastern.
Fox Family Films
Fox created a film division for the channel, Fox Family Films, which produced motion pictures targeted at different age groups, mainly towards children; the titles included
In August 1999, the channel experienced its highest total viewership at that point in its history, with the premiere of the made-for-TV romantic/family comedy Au Pair.[38]
31 Nights of Halloween
In October 1998, Fox Family introduced one of its most successful[
25 Days of Christmas
Two years before the launch of its Halloween programming lineup, in 1996, what was then The Family Channel launched the "
Change in visual style
On September 1, 2000, Fox Family adopted a new visual style, as part of an attempt to refocus its programming to attract an older audience. While in essence, it maintained a family-oriented format, the network began to feature some original and acquired programming aimed at adults during the early evening and in prime time.[39] At that time, Fox Family purchased the syndication rights to the CBS series Early Edition, and two ABC series: My So-Called Life and Step by Step (the latter of which aired on the channel until March 2010 as ABC Family). The channel also acquired the short-lived comedy-drama series Freaks and Geeks, including episodes of the show that had not previously aired as a result of its 2000 cancellation by NBC, and broadcast more "romantic comedy"-themed original movies.
Keeping kids and families in mind, the channel introduced the original series
Declining ratings
Under the control of Murdoch and Saban, Fox Family saw its overall viewership slide from 10th to 17th place in the
It is also suggested that News Corporation hired more employees than were needed, and when Disney took ownership, as many as 500 people were laid off (this was also at a time when The Walt Disney Company itself was downsizing, as the company had laid off 400 other employees from its failed
ABC Family
Purchase by Disney and early attempts at changing the network's focus
On July 23, 2001, News Corporation and Saban announced that Fox Family Worldwide Inc. would be sold to The Walt Disney Company for $2.9 billion; consequently, the unit would be renamed
On November 10, 2001, the channel was renamed ABC Family; the on-air look that it adopted in its final year under Murdoch/Saban ownership as Fox Family was modified for the newly rebranded network in the meantime (including its logo, which was altered to swap out the vertically aligned Fox wordmark placed on the left parenthetical fringe with ABC's legacy "circle" logo, and production music), although it would begin using new continuity announcers. The network also revamped its programming lineup following the Disney acquisition. Partly to reduce competition with new sister network Disney Channel, which launched one year and nine months after what was then CBN Cable adopted a family-focused entertainment format, the network heavily scaled back the amount of children's programming on its schedule, relegating the handful of programs that were retained to the morning hours. With this, the remaining Fox Kids shows that were on ABC Family's schedule became part of the "ABC Family Action Block", a new two-hour-long block of action-oriented animated series (which was renamed "Jetix" in February 2004) that aired on weekday mornings, shows aimed at a broader family audience as well as those aimed specifically at teenagers, adults or both audiences also replaced the more kid-oriented shows in afternoon timeslots (Disney Channel simultaneously underwent its own demographic shift, dropping its remaining family-oriented programming with the September 2002 removal of its nightly vintage programming block, Vault Disney, in order to focus firmly on children and younger teenagers, a demographic it began gravitating toward when it transitioned into a basic cable channel in April 1997). The network also relocated its operations to The Walt Disney Company's headquarters in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, California.
Production responsibilities for the network's baseball playoff coverage that originated during its run as Fox Family were assumed by another of ABC Family's new sister networks,
The channel's sale to Disney, however, would be considered one of the biggest strategic errors made during the latter years of
In trying to change the programming focus of ABC Family, Disney also canceled several original series that originated on the channel under its former identity as Fox Family (such as the 1960s-set period dramedy
Another plan drafted by Disney was to re-position the channel to market it at a more hip audience, such as college students or young women, and rename it "XYZ," a reverse reference to ABC; however, this concept was ultimately dropped. The decision not to move forward with the "XYZ" rebranding had been alleged to be because of the stipulation reported to have been put in place within International Family Entertainment's original sale agreement to News Corporation by Pat Robertson that the word "Family" must be contained in the name of the channel for the entirety of its existence, no matter the owner.[6][50] The "XYZ" branding was revisited at one point in 2003, for a program block titled "The XYZ", which featured live-action series and movies aimed at teenagers and young adults, a demographic that the channel would eventually choose to market its programming towards.
Disney also inherited the contractual rights to broadcast select CBN programs, as mandated by the ministry under International Family Entertainment's previous sale agreement with Fox. However, ABC Family would move to distance itself from The 700 Club out of concern over potential viewer blowback following a series of controversial remarks made by Robertson on the program in the years following the channel's purchase by Disney about the regime of
On August 29, 2005, the disclaimers that appear before, during and after its broadcasts of The 700 Club were revised from "The following/preceding program is/was brought to you by CBN" to "The following/preceding CBN telecast does not reflect the views of ABC Family."Disney would later make attempts to reach an agreement with Pat Robertson to buy out CBN's time-buy contract for The 700 Club and The 700 Club Interactive. Months prior to the announcement of the Freeform rebranding in 2015, Disney–ABC offered CBN a payment of $42 million – the same amount that the ministry earned in revenue during that year from syndication fees for The 700 Club and various related productions – for Robertson to terminate the channel's agreement with the ministry, but could not agree to terms as Robertson wanted a higher payout that ABC Family president Ascheim deemed "astronomical" in comparison to its actual value. The distancing of the two entities extends further as the channel's management does not regularly discuss their programming strategy with CBN, nor has the channel actively promoted its airings of The 700 Club or the associated talk shows that have preceded it in its initial morning time slot since News Corporation acquired the channel years prior, either on-air or on its website.[52]
"A New Kind of Family"
In August 2006, ABC Family shifted towards a dual audience once more with teenagers and young adults becoming the primary target demographic of its programming. As part of the shift, the channel introduced a new slogan ("A New Kind of Family") as part of an imaging package that incorporated a custom typeface based on that used in the ABC logo for its promotional graphics.
The network's programming became focused upon original drama and comedy series primarily aimed at teenagers and young adults, acquired sitcoms and drama series from the 1990s onward, and movies aimed at its new demographic focus; even still, it continued to include programs catering to families in the form of feature films aired as part of its prime time and weekend movie blocks, and holiday specials featured as part of the seasonal "13 Nights of Halloween" and the "25 Days of Christmas" blocks. However, despite the network's refocusing towards the latter demographic, ABC Family/Freeform continues to air live and repeat broadcasts of The 700 Club every weekday.[34][53]
Jetix remained part of ABC Family's morning schedule until it was discontinued on August 31 of that year, with the block becoming exclusive to Toon Disney beginning on September 2, effectively removing children's programming from ABC Family altogether (programs targeted at that demographic have largely remained off of its lineup since that point). Repeats of acquired off-network programs began to fill the 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time period formerly occupied by Jetix, with the morning airing of the 700 Club/Living the Life block being pushed back a half-hour further to 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time[54] (the former two-hour slot was occupied entirely by sitcoms until 2015, when it switched to a mix of comedy and drama series in that period and the succeeding 9:00 a.m. Eastern half-hour, which had been occupied by sitcom reruns since the launch of Jetix).
As part of the rebranding, ABC Family restrategized to increase its viewership by ramping up production of its original movies and series. The channel began experiencing relative success in 2006, with the debuts of the drama series
In July 2009, the network earned its best-ever ratings for that calendar month in prime time and in total viewership due to strong viewership posted by The Secret Life of the American Teenager for its sophomore season and the debuts of three new series: the
2010 saw the debut of its most successful original series, the drama
On June 6, 2011, the channel broke total and demographic viewership records again with the series premiere of the drama
Freeform
The shift towards a more teen and young adult focus became more clear when Variety reported in a December 3, 2014, article, that ABC Family executives were proposing to relaunch the network as early as 2015, with options being considered including the expansion of programming appealing more toward young adults between the ages of 14 and 34 as opposed to families or teenagers, as well as adopting new branding (including a new name).[57] On April 14, 2015, ABC Family executives announced during the channel's 2015–16 upfront presentation, that it would establish a firm focus on teenagers and young adults between the ages of 14 and 34 – a group representatives termed "becomers", instead of the standard "millennials", to describe young people who are in the "formation" of their lives, and to reflect a participatory experience for viewers across multiple platforms.[58]
This culminated in the
Even so, the rebrand was mainly cosmetic in nature, as the network retained much of the programming it ran under its previous ABC Family identity, with those being carried over under the new brand including the 25 Days of Christmas and 13 Days of Halloween blocks, and religious programming (including its weekdaily airings of The 700 Club); however, the channel plans to increase the amount of original programming on its schedule through 2020.[6][7][50][61][62][63][64][65][66] The retention of The 700 Club and The 700 Club Interactive on its lineup was particularly notable – even though the socially conservative views that have been expressed during the programs conflict with the culturally progressive/adult content of some of the channel's secular programming – as network executives were unable to reach an agreement with Pat Robertson and CBN to terminate the ministry's time-buy contract with the channel. While meeting to negotiate a buy out of the programming agreement prior to the rebranding announcement, Robertson had declined a $42-million termination offer by Disney–ABC (an amount roughly equivalent to the ministry's earnings from syndication fees for The 700 Club and various related productions during 2015) and stipulated a higher payout that Ascheim deemed "astronomical" in comparison to its actual value.[52][64][65][66]
On April 7, 2016, Freeform ordered a series from
On December 14, 2017, in a historic
"A Little Forward"
On January 18, 2018, Freeform unveiled a new logo and slogan, "A Little Forward", and officially rebranded on March 6, 2018. The new slogan reflects refinements to the network's programming direction, with a larger focus on "forward-looking" series (such as The Bold Type and the Black-ish spin-off Grown-ish). Tom Ascheim explained that with the rebranding, Freeform was "purposefully and passionately moving our brand forward by defying expectations and dismantling conventions; busting stereotypes of theme, cast and culture in service to a more inclusive world on and off screen." The network also unveiled upcoming series in development, such as Scott Stewart's Augs, as well as a new trailer and June 7, 2018, premiere date for Marvel's Cloak and Dagger.[72][73]
On November 26, 2018, Freeform's president Karey Burke was promoted to president of the ABC Entertainment Group to replace the outgoing Channing Dungey. Burke's replacement at Freeform will be determined at a later date.[74][75] On March 27, 2019, Freeform announced that the channel was placing two animated series into development, Betches and Woman World, the first animated series since changing its name from ABC Family.[76]
On June 4, 2018, Freeform canceled Shadowhunters after three seasons.[77] The two-part series finale aired on May 6, 2019. On September 27, 2019, Freeform canceled Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists after one season. On October 24, 2019,[78] Freeform canceled Marvel's Cloak & Dagger after two seasons.[79]
See also
- Family Channel– a Canadian premium/basic cable and satellite specialty channel that is unrelated to ABC Family/Freeform or its predecessors, and had previously sourced its American programming from Freeform sister network Disney Channel and its spinoffs until January 1, 2016
- ABC Spark – a Canadian digital cable and satellite specialty channel owned by Corus Entertainment that serves as a domestic version of ABC Family/Freeform
Notes
- TBS – which began transmitting via satellite in December 1976 – originated as a feed of broadcast television station WTCG (later WTBS and now WPCH-TV) in Atlanta, Georgia; the national version of the channel did not exist until 1981, when the Turner Broadcasting Systemlaunched a separate feed of WTBS for distribution to cable systems outside the Atlanta market containing national advertisements
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- John Kiesewetter (July 15, 1998). "Family Channel takes on Fox look". The Cincinnati Enquirer. E. W. Scripps Company.
- Jeff Bercovici (July 23, 2001). "Disney buying Fox Family Channel". Media Life Magazine. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30.
- Gary Levin (December 3, 2001). "Disney refocusing Family channel". Gannett Company.