History of Freeform facts for kids
The American TV channel Freeform started a long time ago, on April 29, 1977. It was first called the CBN Satellite Service. Since then, it has been owned by four different companies and changed its name six times! This article will tell you all about the channel's journey, from when it was created by the Christian Broadcasting Network to its current owner, The Walt Disney Company. Disney renamed it Freeform on January 12, 2016.
Contents
Early Days: CBN Satellite Service
The channel was created by Pat Robertson and was part of his Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). When it launched in 1977, it was special because it was the first basic cable channel to send its programs using a communications satellite. This meant it was the first national cable channel!
At first, the channel only showed religious programs for a Christian audience. These included CBN's main show, The 700 Club, and other religious shows. Over time, the channel became very popular, reaching over 10 million homes by 1981.
On September 1, 1981, the channel changed its name to CBN Cable Network. It also started showing more "family-friendly" entertainment. This included classic TV shows from the 1950s and 1960s like My Little Margie and Wagon Train. They also showed old movies and some family dramas. CBN Cable even started making its own shows, like the talk show US a.m. and the soap opera Another Life.
The network also aired and helped make some Christian or family-friendly animated shows. These included Japanese anime like Superbook and The Flying House. Even with new shows, religious programs like The 700 Club were still a big part of the schedule. By 1990, about a quarter of the channel's programs were religious.
More shows joined the CBN Cable lineup later, such as Hazel and Gunsmoke. The channel continued to grow, reaching over 35 million homes by 1987.
The Family Channel Era
.jpg)
On August 1, 1988, the channel changed its name again to The CBN Family Channel. This new name showed that it was focused on family-friendly shows. In 1988, CBN sold the channel to a new company called International Family Entertainment Inc. (IFE). This company was started by Pat Robertson's son, Timothy Robertson.
As part of the sale, the channel had to keep showing The 700 Club. This rule stayed in place even when the channel was sold to new owners later on. Many people thought there was another rule that said the word "Family" had to stay in the channel's name forever. But when Disney announced the name change to Freeform in 2015, they said there was no record of such a rule.
By 1992, the channel was available in 54 million homes across the U.S. The old sitcoms and westerns were shown less often. Instead, the channel added more recent drama series, cartoons, and game shows. They even made their own game shows like Trivial Pursuit and Shop 'til You Drop.
In 1989, the CBN Family Channel launched a kids' block called "Fun Town." It featured cartoons from DIC Enterprises.
In 1993, IFE bought a British TV company. That same year, IFE and another company launched an international version of The Family Channel in the United Kingdom. This channel later became a game show network called Challenge. IFE also launched another channel in the U.S. called the Cable Health Club, which later became FitTV.
From 1994 to 1997, The Family Channel was the main sponsor of a NASCAR race car, which helped the channel get more attention.
Fox Family Takes Over
Fox Kids Worldwide Buys the Channel
In 1997, Rupert Murdoch's company, News Corporation, decided to buy The Family Channel. They wanted to combine it with their Fox Kids company. On June 11, 1997, News Corporation bought International Family Entertainment for a lot of money. The Family Channel then became part of Fox Kids Worldwide, which was renamed Fox Family Worldwide.
The Family Channel officially became Fox Family Channel on August 15, 1998. The channel's offices moved from Virginia to Los Angeles, where other Fox channels were located.
New Shows and Ideas
When Fox bought the channel, they wanted it to appeal to two groups: kids during the day and families at night. Fox Family removed most of the old shows like Bonanza and Hawaii Five-O. They replaced them with shows for younger viewers. The new CEO, Rich Cronin, said they wanted to focus on "younger families, more suburban or urban, more plugged into pop culture".
Fox Family still had to air The 700 Club, but they showed it fewer times a day. They added many animated series, often from the Fox Kids library. They had different kids' blocks like "Morning Scramble" and "The Basement." Fox Family also planned to spend a lot of money on new original movies and series.
In 1999, Fox Family launched two digital channels called Boyz Channel and Girlz Channel. These channels had programs for specific genders. However, they didn't last long and closed in 2000 because not many people watched them.
Major League Baseball on Fox Family
In April 2000, Fox Family started showing Major League Baseball (MLB) games. They usually aired games on Thursday or Saturday nights.
Starting in 2001, the network also showed games from the first round of the MLB playoffs, called the Division Series. One famous game aired on Fox Family was on October 4, 2001, when Barry Bonds hit his 70th home run of the season!
The 700 Club Continues
Because of the agreement when Fox bought the channel, The 700 Club continued to air. It was shown twice every weekday. The channel also aired a related talk show called Living the Life and occasional weekend fundraisers for CBN. Even today, The 700 Club is still shown on the channel, now called Freeform.
Fox Family Movies
Fox Family created its own movie division, Fox Family Films. They made movies mostly for children, like Addams Family Reunion. They also made movies for teenagers, such as the thriller Don't Look Behind You. Fox Family also showed many movies from Saban Entertainment and direct-to-video films from 20th Century Fox.
In 1999, the movie Au Pair premiered and brought in the most viewers the channel had ever seen at that time.
Halloween and Christmas Fun
In October 1998, Fox Family started a very popular event called "The 13 Days of Halloween." This block of spooky shows and movies began on October 19 and led up to Halloween. It featured new shows like The New Addams Family and Scariest Places on Earth. This block was later renamed "13 Nights of Halloween" and is still a big hit today. In 2018, it was expanded to "31 Nights of Halloween," lasting the whole month of October!
Two years before that, in 1996, The Family Channel started the "25 Days of Christmas". This block of holiday-themed programs runs every December, from the 1st until Christmas Day. It features classic Christmas specials and holiday movies. This tradition also continued under Fox Family and later ABC Family/Freeform. In 2018, the "Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas" block was renamed "Kickoff to Christmas" and now starts on November 1.
Changing Style and Falling Ratings
On September 1, 2000, Fox Family changed its look to try and attract an older audience. They started showing acquired shows like Early Edition and Step by Step. They also showed the comedy-drama Freaks and Geeks.
However, this idea didn't work very well. Fox Family's viewership started to drop. They faced tough competition from other kids' channels like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network. Some people believe the channel lost its older viewers when it suddenly removed all the classic shows they used to air. This made it hard to attract new viewers while keeping the old ones.
ABC Family Takes Over
Disney Buys the Channel
On July 23, 2001, News Corporation sold Fox Family Worldwide Inc. to The Walt Disney Company for a lot of money. The company was then renamed ABC Family Worldwide Inc.. This sale meant that Disney, which also owned ABC, now had the rights to many Fox Kids shows.
On November 10, 2001, the channel officially became ABC Family. The channel changed its look and started showing fewer kids' programs. The remaining kids' shows were moved to a morning block called "ABC Family Action Block," which later became "Jetix" in 2004. ABC Family also moved its operations to Disney's headquarters in Burbank, California.
The baseball playoff games that Fox Family used to air moved to Disney's other sports channel, ESPN.
Some people thought buying Fox Family was a mistake for Disney. Disney had planned to show reruns of ABC shows on the channel, but they didn't own the rights to most of ABC's programs. The channel did air some ABC shows produced by Disney's own studios.
Disney also canceled some of the original shows that Fox Family had made and reduced the number of new movies. This caused ABC Family's ratings to drop even more.
Disney also thought about renaming the channel "XYZ" to target college students or young women. However, this idea was dropped. The channel eventually did start to focus on teenagers and young adults.
"A New Kind of Family"
In August 2006, ABC Family changed its focus again. It started to target teenagers and young adults as its main audience. The channel introduced a new slogan, "A New Kind of Family."
The programs became more focused on original drama and comedy series for teens and young adults. They also showed acquired sitcoms and dramas from the 1990s and movies for this new audience. However, the channel still showed family movies and holiday specials like "13 Nights of Halloween" and "25 Days of Christmas." And, of course, The 700 Club continued to air every weekday.
The "Jetix" kids' block was removed in 2006, and children's programming largely disappeared from ABC Family's schedule.
ABC Family started to become more successful in 2006 with new drama series like Wildfire and Lincoln Heights. In 2007, the fantasy drama Kyle XY became the most-watched show in the network's history. This record was broken in 2008 by the teen drama The Secret Life of the American Teenager.
In 2009, the channel had its best ratings ever for July, thanks to shows like The Secret Life of the American Teenager and new series like Make It or Break It. They also showed extended versions of Harry Potter movies.
In 2010, ABC Family launched its most successful original series, the drama Pretty Little Liars. This show, based on popular mystery novels, broke all previous ratings records for the channel. Its success led to other shows based on the same author's books. That summer also saw the debut of the comedy hit Melissa & Joey, which became the first original sitcom on the channel to reach 100 episodes.
More successful shows followed, like the drama Switched at Birth in 2011 and the comedy Baby Daddy in 2012. In 2013, the drama The Fosters, produced by Jennifer Lopez, also gained a lot of viewers and was praised for its story about an interracial lesbian couple raising adopted children.
Freeform: The Current Era
The channel's focus on teens and young adults became even clearer in 2014. ABC Family executives started planning to relaunch the network with new branding and a focus on young adults aged 14 to 34. They called this group "becomers," meaning young people who are in the "formation" stage of their lives.
This led to the announcement on October 6, 2015, that the network would be renamed Freeform. The name change happened on January 12, 2016. This change was made because surveys showed that people who didn't watch ABC Family often thought it was only for families, not for young adults. The new name, Freeform, was chosen to better represent the channel's target audience.
The rebrand was mostly a name change. The channel kept many of its popular shows and traditions, like the 25 Days of Christmas and 13 Nights of Halloween blocks. Religious programming, including The 700 Club, also stayed on the schedule. Disney tried to end the contract with CBN for The 700 Club, but they couldn't agree on a price.
In 2016, Freeform ordered a new series called Marvel's Cloak and Dagger, based on the comic books. This was the first show from the Marvel Cinematic Universe made for the network.
In 2017, The Walt Disney Company bought most of 21st Century Fox. This meant Freeform was reunited with some of its old sister channels like FX and 20th Century Fox.
"A Little Forward"
On January 18, 2018, Freeform revealed a new logo and slogan: "A Little Forward." This change officially happened on March 6, 2018. The new slogan shows that the network wants to focus on "forward-looking" series, like The Bold Type and Grown-ish. The president of Freeform, Tom Ascheim, said they wanted to "defy expectations and dismantle conventions" and create a more inclusive world on and off screen.
Freeform also announced new animated series in development, the first since it changed its name from ABC Family. However, some popular shows like Shadowhunters and Marvel's Cloak & Dagger were later canceled.
See also
- Family Channel – a Canadian TV channel not related to Freeform, which used to get its shows from Disney Channel.
- ABC Spark – a Canadian TV channel that is like a version of ABC Family/Freeform for Canada.
