The History of Freeform
CBN Satellite Network
Created by Pat Robertson on April 29th, 1977. This channel became the first basic cable channel to transmit via satellite. Those of you who know who Pat Roberson is, then you know what CBN is. I’ll do a video on that another time but this was offered as a Christian-based religious network. Airing 700 Club three times per day Monday through Friday, also providing programs from Televangelists. By May of 1981, the channel was broadcasted to 10.9 Millions households. In August of the same year, the channel was relaunched as the CBN Cable Network. As a way to have advertisers they had to rebrand as a “Family Friendly” broadcast channel, they still offered religious content as it was a third of their programming. The CBN Cable Network added classic tv shows like My Little Margie, Wagon Train, The Virginian and Bachelor Father. Yes I will make a video on those shows. They also added a morning show called US a.m. and a faith based soap opera called Another Life. The channel added some more faith based and family-friendly animations and added some Anime. One of those anime shows was Leo The Lion also known as Kimba The White Lion. Religious programming was still a large percentage of the CBN Network even with all of the added content. Households that got the channel went from 28 Million Households to 35.8 Million by May 1987.
The Family Channel
On August 1, 1988, CBN added Family into the channel’s name, rebranding as The CBN Family Channel and started to air new promos to reflect the new approach to bring in families. By 1990, the channel was making so much money that it was going to take away CBN and Pat Robertson’s non-profit status under U.S. Law. To avoid this they spun-off the channel into a new venture by Pat’s oldest son and CBN President, Tele-Communications In. Owner John C Malone and Multimedia Firm Liberty Media called International Family Entertainment Inc. Since the channel was no longer under the CBN banner the channel was rebranded as just The Family Channel on September 15, 1990. Although the channel was not under the CBN banner, Pat Robertson added a clause in the contract that allowed the new channel to still air The 700 Club at a decent time so the show can still get high ratings. Another clause that Robertson is alleged to have also added stated that no matter who owns the channel, the world Family would still be continued to be used. By 1989, the channel was seen in 47.3 million households and distributed to 52 million or 92% of American Households with a cable subscription by 1992. At this point in the channels life, the 50’s sitcoms and westerns were scaled way down and in place of the shows that made it a household name were game shows like Shop Til you Drop and Trivial Pursuit and reruns of Name That Tune and Let’s Make A Deal. They also aired family-friendly music videos in a series known as Videosyncrasy, apart of a weekly block of programming known as the “Positive Place”. In March 1992, the Christian Broadcasting Network sold its interest in International Family Entertainment after the channel went public. CBN sold 6.66 million shares which was worth 100 Million Dollars. IFE also sold 3.33 million shares. In January 1993 bought TVS Entertainment a British broadcaster which owen MTM Enterprises for 68.5 Million dollars. In the same year IFE and Flextech jointly launched a British version of The Family Channel. The network gained more visibility as one of the sponsors of Ted Musgraves #16 Ford Thunderbird as a part of the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. As the years went on, the family oriented programming scaled back until it was completely gone in 1997.
FOX Family
News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch, bought IFE on June 11th, 1997 for 1.9 Billion dollars. The Family Channel was flexed into Fox Kids Worldwide, which was a joint venture by News Corp and Saban, which was renamed as Fox Family Worldwide and renamed The Family Channel as FOX Family on August 15th, 1998. With The Family channel being owned by another company the operations left Virginia Beach, where CBN is located, to LA where the Fox Cable channel shows are produced. As a way to integrate this new channel they dropped the programming that aired on The Family Channel, like Batman, Bonanza, The Carol Burnett Show, Hawaii Five-O and Rescue 911, replaced them with shows that appeal to younger people. In April 2000, Fox Family began airing MLB games in primetime during the regular season. Starting with the 2001 season, Fox added the first round of the MLB playoffs which did not air on Fox. In October 1998, Fox Family introduced The 13 Days of Halloween which became one of its most successful concepts. Beginning on October 19th and running through the 31st of the month. This was rebranded as The 13 Nights of Halloween under Disney. Two years before their Halloween lineup, they decided to launch a programming lineup called the 25 Days of Christmas. This included the Rankin-Bass specials. On September 1st, 2000, Fox Family adopted a new visual style to attract older viewers. Adding CBS shows like Early Edition and two ABC shows like My So-Called and Step by Step while also adding the short-lived FOX property Freaks and Geeks. The channel declined in ratings going against other cable channels like Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel. Viewership dropped by 35% under Murdocha and Saban, which Saban opted for the company to buy his share of the channel.
ABC Family
On July 23rd, 2001, News Corp and Saban announced Fox Family Worldwide would be sold to the Walt Disney Company for 2.9 Billion, the unit was renamed as ABC Family Worldwide, Inc. On November 10th, 2001, the channel was renamed ABC Family. To not draw viewership away from Disney Channel, ABC Family would air “kids shows” to the morning hours and draw a new distinctive path for the channel otherwise, it became ABC Family Action Block which added animated shows, this would later be known as Jetix. The Network also relocated to Burbank, California which is where Disney’s headquarters are. This purchase was not run by ABC executives so only Micheal Eisner, the president of disney at the time, and Disney’s strategic planning department knew about it. The idea was to have ABC Family have reruns of ABC shows but that couldn’t happen because ABC didn’t own a majority of the shows that ran on the channel as distribution was owned by Buena Vista Television. The channel added same season repeats of current ABC shows like Alias, Less Than Perfect and Life With Bonnie and added failed series like the reality competition series All American Girl. After trying to plan out a rebrand of ABC Family called XYZ, a young teen version of ABC, they decided to scrap that idea and to make ABC Family as the young adult channel. On August 29th, 2005, ABC Family started running disclaimers on The 700 Club after Pat Robertson made some disparaging comments about Hugo Chavez, Homo Sexuals, Feminsts, Muslims, and abortion. Jetix was discontinued from ABC Family and was exclusive to Toon Disney. The Channel ramped up production of original series and movies to expand viewership. In 2006 the Drama series Wildfire and Lincoln Heights, more success came in 2007 with the fantasy dram series Kyle XY earned the highest in the networks history. Also in 2007, the college dramedy Greek pulled in strong ratings. In 2008, the show that really made ABC Family a must-see network, The Secret Life of The American Teenager debuted. The first season pulled in 2.28 million viewers for the premiere and by the season finale pulled in 4.50 million viewers. In 2010, the channel debuted the second most successful show on the network, Pretty Little Liars which was based on the series of young adult mystery novels by Sara Shepard. On June 6th, 2011, the channel broke total and demographic viewership records again with the series premiere of the drama Switched At Birth.
Freeform
On March 6th, 2018, Disney rebranded the channel again to what it is now known as, Freeform. Freeform still retains the 25 Days of Christmas and the 13 nights of halloween. Through the deal made by Pat Robertson, Freeform still has to run the 700 Club and Robertson declined a 42 Million dollar termination off by Disney. Freeform cancelled Shadowhunters, a show based on the fantasy drama The Mortal Instruments book series, Pretty Little Liars: The Perfectionists and Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger. In 2020, Freeform aired an original LGBT-themed romantic comedy called The Thing About Harry. Very recently freeform started airing a show called Cruel Summer, another original series. Freeform is still kinda young, I am excited to see where it goes from here.
