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ABC Family Worldwide
 | |
| Formerly |
|
|---|---|
| Company type | Subsidiary |
| NYSE: FAM | |
| Industry | Broadcasting |
| Predecessor | International Family Entertainment |
| Founded | October 15, 1996[1] |
| Founder | Timothy Robertson |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Religious broadcasting (formerly) Animated and live-action children television programming (formerly) Teenage dramas (currently) Family broadcasting (currently) |
| Parent | Fox Networks Group (1996–2001) Disney General Entertainment Content (2001–present) |
| Subsidiaries | BVS Entertainment[2] Freeform |
| Footnotes / references [3] | |
ABC Family Worldwide is a subsidiary of the Disney ABC Networks division of The Walt Disney Company that operates American basic cable channel ABC Family (now Freeform) and manages the programming libraries of Disney's subsidiaries BVS Entertainment and Fox Kids/Jetix.
The company was originally formed as International Family Entertainment, a spin-off 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 1996, 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. Fox and Saban planned to leverage the popular Fox Kids lineup to turn The Family Channel (which was re-branded as the Fox Family Channel following the purchase) into a competitor to other children's-oriented cable channels such as Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. The subsidiary also established international Fox Kids networks in Europe and Latin America.
After facing struggling ratings and a failed attempt by Saban to buy out News Corporation's stake in the venture, Fox Family Worldwide was later sold to its current owner, The Walt Disney Company, in 2001 for $5.3 billion, after which the company was rebranded as ABC Family Worldwide until 2016. The purchase gave Disney ownership of the Fox Family channel (which was subsequently rebranded as ABC Family), the international Fox Kids channels (which were later re-branded as Jetix, and then Disney Channel or Disney XD), and rights to the Saban Entertainment (now BVS Entertainment) and Fox Kids/Jetix libraries. Currently, the subsidiary is a sub-division of Disney General Entertainment Content, the television assets division of Disney's Disney Entertainment major business segment. Saban Brands would acquire the rights to some of the properties held by BVS Entertainment (the prominent ones being Power Rangers and Digimon); most of these assets have since been sold to Hasbro and absorbed into its current production studio Hasbro Entertainment.
- ^ Susan King (December 30, 1990). "Family Channel Tries To Change Image". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on November 24, 2015. Retrieved October 9, 2015 – via Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.
- ^ "Financiele". afm.nl.
- ^ "Business Entity Detail: ABC Family Worldwide, Inc. (Search on Entity C1991622)". California Business Search. California Secretary of State. Archived from the original on 2015-03-15. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
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