American Broadcasting Company
The
American Broadcasting Company (
ABC) operates
television and
radio networks in the
United States. Created in 1943 from the former
NBC Blue network, ABC is now owned by
The Walt Disney Company. It first broadcasted on television in
1948. Corporate headquarters are in New York, while programming offices are in
Burbank, California, adjacent to the
Walt Disney Studios and the
Walt Disney Company corporate headquarters.
The formal name of the operation is
American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., and that name appears on copyright notices for its in-house network productions and on all official documents of the company, including paychecks and contracts. A separate entity named
ABC Inc., formerly Capital Cities/ABC Inc., is that firm's direct parent company, and that company is owned in turn by Disney. The network today, in fact, is the last of the
Big Three broadcasting networks to use the full name based upon this
initialism (after the in
1974, and the in
2004). The network is sometimes referred to as the
Alphabet Network, due to the letters "ABC" being the first three letters of the
Latin alphabet.
Creating ABC
From the organization of the first true radio networks in the late 1920s, broadcasting in the United States was dominated by two companies,
CBS and
RCA's
NBC. Prior to NBC's 1926 formation, RCA had acquired
AT&T's
New York station
WEAF (later WNBC, now
WFAN). With WEAF came a loosely organized system feeding programming to other stations in the northeastern U.S. RCA also took control of a second such group, fed by
Westinghouse's WJZ in New York. These were the foundations of RCA's two distinct programming services, the NBC "Red" and NBC "Blue" networks. Legend has it that the color designations originated from the color of the push-pins early engineers used to designate affiliates of WEAF (red pins) and WJZ (blue pins).
After years of study the
FCC in 1940 issued a "Report on Chain Broadcasting." Finding that two corporate owners (and the co-operatively owned
Mutual Broadcasting System) dominated American broadcasting, this report proposed "divorcement," requiring the sale by RCA of one of its chains. NBC Red was the larger radio network, carrying the leading entertainment and music programs. In addition, many Red affiliates were high-powered, clear-channel stations, heard nationwide. NBC Blue offered most of the company's news and cultural programs, many of them "sustaining" or unsponsored. Among other findings, the FCC claimed RCA used NBC Blue to suppress competition against NBC Red. The FCC did not regulate or license networks directly. However, it could influence them by means of its hold over individual stations. Consequently, the FCC issued a ruling that "no license shall be issued to a standard broadcast station affiliated with a network which maintains more than one network." NBC argued this indirect style of regulation was illegal and appealed to the courts. However, the FCC won on appeal, and NBC was forced to sell one of its networks. It opted to sell NBC Blue.
The task of selling of NBC Blue was given to
Mark Woods; throughout 1942 and 1943, NBC Red and NBC Blue divided their assets. A price of $8 million was put on the assets of the Blue group, and Woods shopped the Blue package around to potential buyers. One such, investment bank
Dillon, Read made an offer of $7.5 million, but Woods and RCA chief
David Sarnoff held firm at $8 million. The Blue package contained leases on land-lines and on studio facilities in New York,
Washington, D.C.,
Chicago and
Los Angeles; contracts with talent and with about sixty affiliates; the trademark and "good will" associated with the Blue name; and licenses for three stations (WJZ in New York,
San Francisco's KGO, and WENR in Chicago - really a half-station, since WENR shared time and a frequency with "Prairie Farmer" station
WLS).
RCA finally found a buyer in
Edward Noble, owner of
Life Savers candy and the
Rexall drugstore chain. In order to complete the station-license transfer, Noble had to sell the New York radio station that he owned,
WMCA. Also, FCC hearings were required. Controversy ensued over Noble's intention to keep Mark Woods on as president, which led to the suggestion that Woods would continue to work with (and for) his former employers. This had the potential to derail the sale. During the hearings, Woods said the new network would not sell airtime to the
American Federation of Labor. Noble evaded questioning on similar points by hiding behind the
NAB code. Frustrated, the chairman advised Noble to do some rethinking. Apparently he did, and the sale closed on October 12,
1943. The new network, known simply as "The Blue Network," was owned by the American Broadcasting System, a company Noble formed for the deal. It sold airtime to organized labor.
In mid-1944, Noble renamed his network
American Broadcasting Company. This set off a flurry of re-naming; to avoid confusion, CBS changed the call-letters of its New York flagship, WABC-AM 880, to
WCBS-AM in
1946. In 1953, WJZ in New York took on the abandoned call-letters
WABC.
ABC began slowly; with few "hit" shows, it had to build an audience. Noble sprang for more stations, among them Detroit's
WXYZ; one of the founding stations of the Mutual network. WXYZ was where
The Lone Ranger,
Sergeant Preston,
Sky King and other popular daily serials originated. With this purchase, ABC instantly acquired a bloc of established daily shows. Noble also bought KECA (now
KABC) in Los Angeles, to give the network a Hollywood production base. Counter-programming became an ABC specialty, for example, placing a raucous quiz-show like
Stop the Music against more thoughtful fare on NBC and CBS. Unlike the other networks, ABC pre-recorded many programs; advances in tape-recording brought back from conquered Germany meant that the audio quality of tape could not be distinguished from "live" broadcasts. As a result, several high-rated stars who wanted freedom from rigid schedules, among them
Bing Crosby, moved to ABC. Though still rated fourth, by the late 1940s ABC had begun to close in on the better-established networks.
Enter Leonard Goldenson
Faced with huge expenses in building a radio network, ABC was in no position to take on the additional costs demanded by a television network. To secure a place at the table, though, in 1947 ABC submitted requests for licenses in the five cities where it owned radio stations. All five requests were for each station to broadcast on
channel 7; ABC executives thought at the time that the low-band (channels 2 through 6) TV channels would be discontinued, thus making these five stations broadcasting on VHF channel 7 the lowest on the TV dial and therefore the best channel positions. (Such a move never occurred in the analog era; though with the poor digital TV performance of low-band channels it could conceivably happen in the future, DTV's use of
logical channel numbers will protect the lower dial positions.)
On
April 19,
1948 the ABC television network went on the air. Interestingly, the network picked up its first affiliate, WFIL-TV in
Philadelphia (now
WPVI-TV) before its first
owned and operated station, WJZ-TV in New York (now
WABC-TV) signed on in August.
For the next several years, ABC was a television network mostly in name. Except for the largest markets, most cities had only one or two stations. The FCC froze applications for new stations in 1948 while it sorted out the thousands of applicants, and re-thought the technical and allocation standards set down in 1938. What was meant to be a six-month freeze lasted until 1952, and until that time there were only 101 stations in the United States. For a late-comer like ABC, this meant being relegated to secondary status in many markets. ABC commanded little affiliate loyalty, though unlike fellow startup network
DuMont, it at least had a radio network on which to draw loyalty and revenue. It also had a full complement of five O&Os, which included stations in the critical Chicago (WENR-TV, now
WLS-TV) and Los Angeles (KECA-TV, now
KABC-TV) markets. Even then, by
1951 ABC found itself badly overextended and on the verge of bankruptcy. It had only nine full-time affiliates to augment its five O&Os--WJZ, WENR, KECA,
WXYZ-TV in Detroit and
KGO-TV in San Francisco.
Noble finally found a
white knight in United Paramount Theaters. Divorced from
Paramount Pictures at the end of 1949 by
Supreme Court order, UPT had plenty of money on hand and was not afraid to spend it. UPT head
Leonard Goldenson immediately set out to find investment opportunities. Barred from the film business, Goldenson saw broadcasting as a possibility, and approached Noble about buying ABC. Since the transfer of station licenses was again involved, the FCC set hearings. At the heart of this was the question of the Paramount Pictures-UPT divorce: were they truly separate? And what role did Paramount's long-time investment in DuMont Laboratories, parent of the television network, play? After a year of deliberation the FCC approved the purchase by UPT in a 5–2 split decision on
February 9,
1953. Speaking in favor of the deal, one commissioner pointed out that UPT had the cash to turn ABC into a viable, competitive third network. ABC considers 1953 to be its official birthdate.
Shortly after the ABC–UPT merger, Goldenson approached DuMont with a merger offer. DuMont was in financial trouble for a number of reasons, not the least of which was an FCC ruling that barred it from acquiring two additional O&Os because of two stations owned by Paramount. However, DuMont's pioneering status in television and programming creativity gave it a leg up on ABC, and for a time appeared that DuMont was about to establish itself as the third television network. This all changed with the ABC-UPT merger, which effectively placed DuMont on life support. Goldenson and DuMont's managing director, Ted Bergmann, quickly agreed to a deal. Under the proposed merger, the merged network would have been called "ABC-DuMont" for at least five years. DuMont would get $5 million in cash and guaranteed advertising time for DuMont television receivers. In return, ABC agreed to honor all of DuMont's network commitments. The merged network would have had to sell either WJZ-TV or DuMont flagship WABD-TV (now
WNYW) as well as two other stations in order to comply with the FCC's five-station limit. However, Paramount vetoed the sale. A few months earlier, the FCC ruled that Paramount controlled DuMont, and there were still lingering questions about whether the two companies were truly separate. By 1956, the DuMont network had shut down.
After its acquisition by UPT, ABC at last had the means to offer a full-time television network service. By mid-
1953 Goldenson had begun a two-front campaign, calling on his old pals at the Hollywood studios (he had been head of the mighty Paramount theater chain since 1938) to convince them to move into programming. And he began wooing station owners to convince them that a refurbished ABC was about to burst forth. He also convinced long-time NBC and CBS affiliates in several markets to move to ABC. His two-part campaign paid off when the "new" ABC hit the air on
October 27,
1954. Among the shows that brought in record audiences was "
Disneyland", produced-by and starring
Walt Disney.
MGM,
Warner Bros. and
Twentieth Century-Fox were also present that first season. Within two years, Warners was producing ten hours of programming for ABC each week, mostly interchangeable detective and western series. The middle 1950's saw ABC finally have shows in the top-10 including
Disneyland. However, it still had a long way to go. It was relegated to secondary status in many markets until the late 1960s, and in some cases well into the 1980s.
The 1960s
While ABC-TV continued to languish in third place nationally, it often topped local ratings in the larger markets. With the arrival of Hollywood's slickly-produced series, ABC began to catch on with younger, urban viewers. As the network gained in the ratings, it became an attractive property, and over the next few years ABC approached, or was approached, by
GE (which would have had to sell its stake in RCA, owner of NBC),
Howard Hughes,
Litton Industries,
GTE and
ITT. ABC and ITT agreed to a merger in late 1965, but this deal was derailed by FCC and
Department of Justice questions about ITT's foreign ownership influencing ABC's autonomy and journalistic integrity. ITT's management promised that ABC's autonomy would be preserved. While it was able to convince the FCC, antitrust regulators at the Justice Department refused to sign off on the deal. After numerous delays, the deal was called off on
January 1,
1968.
By the early 1960s, ABC Radio found its audience continuing to gravitate to television. With a decline in network listenership and far less network programming, ABC's owned local stations (like WABC and WLS) became wildly successful playing popular music. But by the mid-1960s, hourly newscasts, commentaries and a few long-running serials were all that remained on the network schedule.
Lawrence Welk's musical hour (simulcast from television), and
Don McNeill's daily "Breakfast Club" variety show were among the offerings. On January 1, 1968, ABC's radio programming service split into four new "networks," each one with format-specific news and features for pop-music-, news-, or talk-oriented stations. The "American" Contemporary, Entertainment, Information and FM networks were later joined by two others - Direction and Rock.
During this period of the 1960s, ABC founded an in-house production unit,
ABC Films, to create new material especially for the network. Shortly after the death of producer
David O. Selznick, ABC acquired the rights to a considerable amount of the Selznick theatrical film library, including
Rebecca and
Portrait of Jennie (but not including Selznick's bigger hits, like
Gone With the Wind and the 1957 version of
A Farewell to Arms).
Success at last
Despite its relatively small size, ABC found increasing success with television programming aimed at the emerging "Baby Boomer" culture. Producer
Roone Arledge helped ABC's fortunes with innovations in sports programming, creating
Wide World of Sports and
Monday Night Football. By doing so he helped to make sport into a multi-billion-dollar industry, and was rewarded by being made head of ABC News and Sports. Continuing the network's upswing in the
1960s were highly rated primetime sitcoms like
My Three Sons,
That Girl,
Bewitched, and
The Brady Bunch. ABC's daytime lineup became strong throughout the 1970s and 1980s with the soap operas
General Hospital,
One Life to Live,
All My Children, and
Ryan's Hope and the game shows
Family Feud and
Let's Make a Deal.
By the early 1970s, ABC had formed its first theatrical division,
ABC Pictures (having acquired independent studio Palamor Pictures). One of its few moneymaking films was
Bob Fosse's
Cabaret. The network itself, meanwhile, was showing signs of overtaking CBS and NBC. Broadcasting in color from the mid-1960s, ABC started using the new science of
demographics to tweak its programming and ad sales. ABC invested heavily in shows with wide appeal, especially situation comedies like
Happy Days, but also offered big-budget, extended-length
miniseries, among them
QB VII, and
Rich Man, Poor Man. The most successful,
Roots, based on
Alex Haley's novel, became one of the biggest hits in television history. Combined with ratings for its regular weekly series,
Roots propelled ABC to a first-place finish in the national
Nielsen ratings for the 1976–1977 season— this was a first in the then thirty-year history of the network. In
1983, via its revived theatrical division,
ABC Motion Pictures,
Silkwood was released in theaters and
The Day After (again produced in-house by its by-then retitled television unit,
ABC Circle Films) was viewed on TV by 100 million people, prompting discussion of
nuclear activities taking place at the time.
In 1984-85, ABC-TV began the transition from
coaxial cable/
microwave delivery to
satellite delivery via AT&T's
Telstar 301. ABC maintained a West Coast feed network on Telstar 302, and in 1991 scrambled feeds on both satellites with the Leitch system. Currently, with the Leitch system abandoned, ABC operates clear feeds on
Intelsat Americas 5 and
Intelsat Americas 6, in addition to digital feeds on both satellites. ABC Radio began using the SEDAT satellite distribution system in the mid-1980s, switching to Starguide in the early 2000s.
ABC purchased a majority stake of the
ESPN networks and franchises in 1984.
Capital Cities (1985 until the Disney Merger)
ABC's dominance carried into the early 1980s. But by 1985, veteran shows like
The Love Boat had lost their steam; a resurgent NBC was leading in the ratings. ABC shifted its focus to situation comedies. During this period, ABC seemed to have lost the momentum that once propelled it; there was little offered that was innovative or compelling. Like his counterpart at CBS,
William S. Paley, founding-father Goldenson had withdrawn to the sidelines. ABC's ratings and the earnings thus generated reflected this loss of drive. Under the circumstances, ABC was a ripe takeover target. However, no one expected the buyer to be a media company only a tenth the size of ABC,
Capital Cities Communications. The corporate name was changed to Capital Cities/ABC.
As the 1990's began, one could conclude this period was more
conservative than other times in the company's history. The miniseries faded off. Saturday morning cartoons were phased out. But the network did acquire
Orion Pictures' television division in the wake of the studio's bankruptcy, thus
ABC Productions was created. Shows produced during this era included
My So-Called Life,
The Commish, and
American Detective (the latter co-produced with Orion before the studio's bankruptcy). In an attempt to win viewers on Friday night, the
TGIF programming block was created. The lead programs of this time included
America's Funniest Home Videos,
Full House,
Family Matters,
Home Improvement, and
Step by Step. This programming was hardly controversial: good
parenting,
abstinence, and maintaining a
nuclear family were common themes.
Acquisition by Disney
In 1996,
The Walt Disney Company acquired Capital Cities/ABC, and renamed the broadcasting group
ABC, Inc., although the network continues to also use
American Broadcasting Companies, such as on TV productions it owns.
ABC's relationship with Disney dates back to 1953, when Leonard Goldenson pledged enough money so that the "Disneyland" theme park could be completed. ABC continued to hold Disney notes and stock until 1960, and also had first call on the "Disneyland" television series in 1954. With this new relationship came an attempt at cross-promotion, with attractions based on ABC shows at Disney
parks and an annual soap festival at Walt Disney World. The former president of ABC, Inc.,
Robert Iger, now heads Disney.
Despite intense micro-managing on the part of Disney management, the flagship television network was slow to turn around. In 1999, the network was able to experience a brief resurgence with the hit
game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. However,
WWTBAM became overexposed, appearing on the network sometimes five or six nights during a week. ABC's ratings fell dramatically as competitors introduced their own game shows and the public grew tired of the format. In 2004, ABC was able to find its niche in dramas such as
Desperate Housewives,
Boston Legal and
Lost, followed shortly by
Grey's Anatomy, which are all popular among viewers and critically acclaimed. However, their reality television programming has not been as successful; despite successes with
Dancing with the Stars, the mishandling of
The Mole (and the creation of its subsequent spinoffs
Celebrity Mole Hawaii and
Celebrity Mole Yucatan) and the continued failures of
The Bachelor and
The Bachelorette are of note. Despite this, ABC is currently the United States' second-most watched network. Also of note is ABC's attempted rebuttal of Fox's enormously popular American Idol,
The One, which attempts to splice a talent competition with a traditional reality show. The show comes in response to 5 years of utter dominance by
American Idol over even ABC's most popular shows.
Borrowing a proven Disney formula, there have been attempts to broaden the ABC brand name. In 2004 ABC launched a news channel called
ABC News Now. Its aim is to provide round-the-clock news on over-the-air digital TV, cable TV, the Internet, and mobile phones.
Through the 1980s and 1990s, as radio's music audience continued to drift to FM, many of ABC's heritage AM stations switched from music to talk. After passing up the rights to syndicate
Rush Limbaugh (whose flagship station, however, remains WABC),
ABC Radio Networks currently syndicates conservative talk show hosts such as
Sean Hannity,
John Batchelor,
Larry Elder, and
Mark Davis. In addition to its most popular offerings, ABC News Radio and Paul Harvey News and Comment, ABC also provides music to automated stations, weekly countdown programs and daily urban morning shows.
While many of ABC's radio stations and network programs remain strong revenue producers to this day, growth in the radio industry has begun to slow dramatically since the dot-com boom of the early 2000s and the consolidation that followed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. In 2005, Disney CEO Bob Iger decided to embark upon a sale of the ABC Radio division, having declared it a "non-core asset." On
February 6,
2006, Disney announced ABC Radio would be spun off and merged with
Citadel Broadcasting Corporation, to form a new company named Citadel Communications. Once the $2.7 billion merger is completed by the end of 2006, Disney shareholders would own a majority of the new radio company's stock, but ABC/Disney would have no control over its operations. Disney is not selling its dozens of ESPN Radio or Radio Disney stations, as the company still sees value in their branding opportunities. ABC News will continue producing ABC News Radio, which Citadel has agreed to continue distributing to affiliates for at least ten years.
Despite intense micro-managing on the part of Disney management, the flagship television network was slow to turn around. In 1999, the network was able to experience a brief resurgence with the hit
game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. However,
WWTBAM became overexposed, appearing on the network sometimes five or six nights during a week. ABC's ratings fell dramatically as competitors introduced their own game shows and the public grew tired of the format. In 2004, ABC was able to find its niche in dramas such as
Desperate Housewives,
Boston Legal and
Lost, followed shortly by
Grey's Anatomy, which are all popular among viewers and critically acclaimed. However, their reality television programming has not been as successful; despite successes with
Dancing with the Stars, the mishandling of
The Mole (and the creation of its subsequent spinoffs
Celebrity Mole Hawaii and
Celebrity Mole Yucatan) and the continued failures of
The Bachelor and
The Bachelorette are of note. Also of note is ABC's attempted rebuttal of Fox's enormously popular American Idol,
The One, which attempted to splice a talent competition with a traditional reality show. So far the concept has been a complete bust for the network, with the series premiering with the second lowest Nielsen score ever for broadcast television.
Despite these marked failures however, ABC is currently the United States' second-most watched network.
Borrowing a proven Disney formula, there have been attempts to broaden the ABC brand name. In 2004 ABC launched a news channel called
ABC News Now. Its aim is to provide round-the-clock news on over-the-air digital TV, cable TV, the Internet, and mobile phones.
A 2003
Nielsen estimate found that ABC could be seen in 96.75% of all homes in the United States, reaching 103,179,600 households. ABC has 10 VHF and UHF owned-and-operated television stations and 191 affiliated stations in the U.S. and U.S. possessions.
Since the 1950s, ABC has split "live" production between east- and west-coast facilities;
ABC Television Center West in
Hollywood, (once the Vitagraph film studios) accommodates sets for the daily soap operas; and the ABC Television Center East, once clustered around a former stable on West 66th Street, and now split between several soundstages in the same New York neighborhood. (ABC's corporate headquarters and TV news studios are located on the north side of West 66th, while some of its soap facilities are across the street. The stages for
The View and "All My Children" in the same building as ABC News Radio, further west on 66th St. near the Hudson River.) Some ABC News programs such as Good Morning America are broadcast from ABC's studios in Times Square. ABC's west coast corporate offices are located in
Burbank, California adjacent to the
Walt Disney Studios and the
Walt Disney Company corporate headquarters.
For most of the network's existence, in regards to children's programming, ABC has aired mostly programming from Walt Disney Television or other producers (among them, Hanna-Barbera Productions (now
Cartoon Network Studios)). The crown jewel of its children's programming lineup was the award-winning
Schoolhouse Rock! which aired beginning in
1973 and was finally retired in
2001.
In the early 1990s, ABC abandoned the children's programming lineup on weekday afternoons, relegating the lineup to Saturdays only. Following ABC's sale to Disney, ABC began airing more and more cartoons from
Walt Disney Television.
In
September 1997, ABC remodeled its Saturday morning children's programming lineup, renaming it
Disney's One Saturday Morning. It featured many programs (mostly animated series) from Walt Disney Television. In
2001, ABC began a deal with sister network
Disney Channel to air its original programming. Originally, the lineup aired only a couple of Disney Channel series,
Lizzie McGuire and
Even Stevens. But has since grown to take up the entire lineup which was rebranded back to
ABC Kids in
September 2002. Now every series on the ABC Kids schedule are series from Disney Channel or
Toon Disney. The only exception is
NBA Inside Stuff, which moved from NBC in 2002 when it acquired the broadcast
NBA contract.
Today, ABC owns nearly all its in-house television and theatrical productions made from the 1970s forward, with the exception of certain co-productions with producers (for example,
The Commish is now owned by its producer,
Stephen Cannell). Also part of the library is the aforementioned Selznick library, the Cinerama Releasing/Palomar theatrical library and the Selmur Productions catalog the network acquired some years back, and the in-house productions it continues to produce (such as
America's Funniest Home Videos,
General Hospital, and ABC News productions), although
Buena Vista handles international distribution.
Most of the in-house ABC shows produced prior to 1973 are now the responsibility of
CBS Paramount Television (via its acquisition of
Worldvision Enterprises in 1999).
 |
ABC logo used from 1957 to 1962. |
Before its early color transmissions, the ABC identity was a lowercase 'abc' inside a lower case 'A'. That logo was known as the "ABC Circle A." The logo was modified in the fall of 1962 when ABC started using the current "ABC Circle" logo (designed by
Paul Rand) with ultra-modern (for its time) lower case 'abc' inside. The
typeface used is a simple geometric design inspired by the
Bauhaus school of the 1920s; its simplicity makes it easy to duplicate, something ABC has taken advantage of many times over the years (especially before the advent of
computer graphics). It does not correspond to a particular
font; however, several common geometric typefaces (including
Avant Garde and
Horatio) are close, and a recently developed typeface is inspired by it. A variation of ABC's logo is used by Brazilian TV network
SBT. A radio station in Mexico's Federal District, XEABC, duplicates the 'abc' lettering as its logo.
New comedies are in
pink; returning dramas are in
green; new dramas are in
blue; returning reality shows are in
yellow; news programming is in
brown; sports programming is in
purple. Scheduled premiere dates shown in parentheses.
All times are
Eastern and
Pacific (subtract one hour for
Central and
Mountain time). [
1]
| Fall 2006 | 7:00 PM | 7:30 PM | 8:00 PM | 8:30 PM | 9:00 PM | 9:30 PM | 10:00 PM | 10:30 PM | | Sunday | America's Funniest Home Videos (10/1) | Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (9/24) | Desperate Housewives (9/24) | Brothers & Sisters (9/24) |
|---|
| Monday | Local Programming | Wife Swap (9/18) | The Bachelor 9: Rome (10/2) | What About Brian (10/9) |
|---|
| Tuesday | Dancing with the Stars 3 (9/12) | The Knights of Prosperity (10/17) | Help Me Help You (9/26) | Boston Legal (9/19) |
|---|
| Wednesday | Dancing with the Stars 3 Results Show (9/13) | Lost (10/4) | The Nine (10/4) |
|---|
| Thursday | Ugly Betty (9/28) | Grey's Anatomy (NN) (NT) (9/21) | Six Degrees (9/21) |
|---|
| Friday | America's Funniest Home Videos (?) | Men in Trees (9/22) | 20/20 (9/8) |
|---|
| Saturday | ABC Saturday Night College Football † (9/2)|}
*(NT) - New Time
*(NN) - New Night
*† - ABC Saturday Night College Football airs live across the country (8 PM Eastern/7 PM Central/6 PM Mountain/5 PM Pacific)
Set for the Rest of Your Life, a new series, is scheduled to replace Dancing with the Stars 3 on Tuesdays, while According to Jim and The George Lopez Show are scheduled to replace the results show on Wednesdays after the conclusion of Dancing with the Stars 3.
American Inventor, Primetime, and Supernanny are other returning shows scheduled to return at midseason.
Day Break will fill in for Lost while it is on its 13-week hiatus.Launched September 27, 2004, ABC1 is a British digital channel avaliable on Freeview (Digital Terrestrial), Sky (satelite) and NTL (Cable) service owned and operated by ABC Inc. Its current schedule is a selection of past and present American shows, nearly all produced by Touchstone Television, and is offered 24 hours a day on the digital satellite and digital cable platforms, and from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the digital terrestrial platform, Freeview. Since ABC1's launch, it had aired the long-running ABC soap General Hospital, making it the only U.S. daytime soap to air new episodes in Britain; however, in late 2005, it was pulled off the air due to low ratings, leaving British television without any U.S. daytime soaps.*ABC News
*ABC Sports
*ABC Family
*ABC Kids
*TGIF (ABC)
*List of programs broadcast by American Broadcasting Company
*List of United States broadcast television networks
*List of ABC slogans
*List of ABC television affiliates
*Circle logo* Barnouw, Erik. The Golden Web: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, 1933-1953. New York: Oxford University Press, 1968.
* Goldenson, Leonard, and Marvin J. Wolf. Beating the Odds: The Untold Story Behind the Rise of ABC. New York: Scribners, 1991.
* Kisseloff, Jeff, The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961. New York: Viking Press, 1988.
* Sampson, Anthony. The Sovereign State of ITT. New York: Stein and Day, 1973.
* Sobel, Robert. ITT. New York: Truman Talley - Times Books, 1982.*ABC website
*A bio of Former President Fred Silverman
*Screen captures of ABC logos past and present, as well as footage of vintage promos on TV Ark
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