| Television Networks Preceding Abc Family |
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CBN CABLE (NETWORK) The network was founded by Pat Robertson in April 1977 as CBN Cable, an arm of his Christian Broadcasting Network . It was the first satellite-launched Basic Cable network. The network offered only Christian programs when it first began. The offerings included ''The 700 Club'' three times a day along with many well known and lesser known television evangelists. As a result a few evangelists began making Monday through Friday programs. The CBN Satellite Service grew to 10.9 million homes by May 1981 . In September 1981 , the format and the name were changed for the first time. CBN Cable Network became an entertainment cable network, providing family programming. The network continued to offer religious shows about a third of the day. The entertainment shows included classic sitcoms from the 1950s, westerns, reruns of game shows, old movies, and some family drama shows, as well as a handful of Christian or family-friendly animation series (including some Anime , such as CBN's own co-productions with Tatsunoko Production in Japan, '' Superbook '' and '' The Flying House ''). Under the new format, the CBN Cable Network grew from 28 million households in May 1985 , to 35.8 million in May 1987 , and by the early 1990s , 47.6 million households. THE FAMILY CHANNEL On , the network had grown too profitable to remain under the CBN banner without endangering CBN's nonprofit status. At that point, the 1950s sitcoms and westerns were scaled back for more recent drama shows as well as cartoons. CBN spun it off to a new company called International Family Entertainment (run by Robertson's son, Tim), and the name was changed to simply The Family Channel. The network gained more visibility when, for several years in the mid-1990s, it was the primary sponsor of Ted Musgrave 's #16 Ford in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series FOX FAMILY It was sold to Fox Broadcasting Company and Haim Saban in July 1997 , and it changed its name to Fox Family. The change from The Family Channel to Fox Family became official on August 15 , 1998 at noon. As '''The Family Channel''', it attracted an older audience not sought by advertisers, but only about one-third of homes watching the network included kids. ''The 700 Club'' was scaled back to twice a day. ''Columbo'' was moved from 9 pm to 10 pm on Sundays. More cartoons were added to the lineup, many of which were from the Fox Kids library. The network was running about 8 hours of cartoons a day. However, Fox Family also became a cornerstone for syndicating foreign TV Series, such as the popular British S-Club 7 TV Series, The channel also syndicated many Canadian TV Series, both animated and live action, including Angela Anaconda , Big Wolf On Campus , I was a 6th Grade Alien, and briefly, The Zack Files . Most of these were a part of the channel's morning line-up, which also included the orginal series, The Great Prenteders . They also added some recent family sitcoms as well. When Fox bought the channel in 1997 , programmers sought a new dual audience — kids in daytime, families at night. In 1999 , Fox tried to spin off two Digital Cable networks from Fox Family, the Boyz Channel and the Girlz Channel, which both contained content focusing on each sex; both networks went off the air a year later due to lack of demand and the controversy that developed over the sex-segregated channels Find Articles . In the late 1990s, Fox Family aired Major League Baseball games, usually on Thursday or Saturday nights, alternating with sister network FX . Starting with the 2001 season, the network also showed games from the first round of the playoffs, the Division Series , which did not air on FOX . As part of the agreement when International Family Entertainment sold the network to Fox, '' The 700 Club '' aired twice every weekday—live at 10 a.m. Eastern , then repeated at 11 p.m. Eastern; they also aired occasional weekend-long CBN telethons as part of the deal (and continue to do so in the ABC Family era). From the late 90's to 2000, Fox created a films division for the channel, Fox Family Films. They created films aimed towards different age groups, mostly children. including ''. For a more teen audience they created ''Ice Angel'' a TV Movie about a hockey player reborn as a woman synchronized skater, as well as ''Dont Look Behind You''. In August 1999 , the channel had the most viewers in its 22 year (then) network history, with the TV movie '' Au Pair ''. highbeam.com In 2000 , Fox Family showed a new visual style, in an attempt to attract an older audience, including buying the syndication rights to the CBS TV Series, Early Edition and more romantic comedy aimed Original Movies as well as keeping kids and families in mind, with the show State Of Grace , as well as special programming blocks for teens, such as ''Fox Family's Summer High School Countdown'' (which was what introduced the Swedish singing group Play ) however this idea was unsuccessful, as a year later, Fox Family was owned by Disney , and only State of Grace was kept, but only for 1 more season. Under Fox's ownership, the Family Channel saw its ranking slide from 10th to 17th place as a result of an increasingly competitive race for younger viewers and the bickering over ownership between News Corp. and Saban. Some observers believe that Fox Family chased away some of the older viewers and never really replaced the core audience. As a result, Prime Time Ratings declined 35% in the past three years. Due to the disagreements with Fox, the television network FOX Family was sold to ABC in July 2001 for $ 3.2 billion. The sale to ABC included the Fox Kids Network (a joint venture of Fox and Haim Saban ) which provided the new ABC Family with hours of children's programming. The few Fox Kids shows ABC Family aired were broadcast under the Jetix action banner, until their final airing on August 31 , 2006 when they were moved to Toon Disney , beginning September 2 , 2006 . However, ABC Family must still air ''The 700 Club'' every weekday, with subsequent repeats at 11 p.m. (ET). The network now runs family movies, 1990s family sitcoms, teen shows, and some drama shows. REFERENCES SEE ALSO
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