ABC Group Capital Cities/ABC Inc. merged and folded into the Walt Disney Company in 1996 and was initially re-branded as
ABC Group. Assets from CC/ABC at the time being merged and/or acquired include/included the ABC Television Network Group, CC/ABC Broadcasting Group (ABC Radio Network, later
Cumulus Media Networks, 8 TV and 21 radio stations), ABC Cable and International Broadcast Group, CC/ABC Publishing Group and CC/ABC Multimedia Group to the fold. The Cable and International Broadcast Group contained ownership shares of
ESPN Inc. (80%),
A&E Television Networks (37.5%),
DIC Productions, L.P. (Limited Partnership stake),
Lifetime Television (50%) and its international investments. These investments included Telephone-München (
now Leonine Holding) (50%, Germany; included 20% of
RTL II), Hamster Productions. (33%, France) and
Scandinavian Broadcasting System (23%, Luxembourg). ESPN also had international holdings:
Eurosport (33.3%, England), TV Sport (10%, France; Eurosport affiliate) and The Japan Sports Channel (20%). The Publishing Group including
Fairchild Publications,
Chilton Publications, multiple newspapers from a dozen dailies (including the
Ft. Worth Star-Telegram, The
Kansas City Star) and more weeklies, and dozens more publications in the fields of farm, business and law trade journals plus LA Magazine to
Institutional Investor. ABC Group pursued businesses in new and emerging media technologies, including the
interactive television,
pay-per-view,
VOD,
HDTV,
video cassette,
Optical disc, on-line services and location-based entertainment. In April 1996, due to the ongoing post Disney-CC/ABC merger realignment and retirement of its president, the
Walt Disney Television and Telecommunications group's division was reassigned to other groups with Walt Disney Television International (including
Disney Channels International and
Buena Vista Television domestic syndication and pay-TV divisions,
GMTV and
Super RTL holdings) were transferred to Capital Cities/ABC. In May due to the merger, ABC ended its
ABC Productions division operations while keeping its boutique production companies:
Victor Television,
DIC Productions, L.P.,
ABC/Kane Productions and
Greengrass Productions. The international operations of Disney TV International and ABC Cable and International Broadcast Group were merged in June as
Disney/ABC International Television. Under Disney, ABC Group sold various publishing companies in 1997. Chilton was sold to Reed Elsevier for $447 million and received $142 million from Euromoney Publications for Institutional Investor. In April,
Knight Ridder purchased four newspapers including
The Kansas City Star and
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram for $1.65 billion. In August 1999, Fairchild Publications was sold to
Condé Nast for $650 million. In March 1998, ABC placed it shares of
Scandinavian Broadcasting System up for sale. In late 1999, Walt Disney Television, along with other television units, were transferred again from
The Walt Disney Studios to Disney–ABC Television Group and merged with
ABC's primetime division,
ABC Entertainment, forming ABC Entertainment Group.
Robert A. Iger was promoted from president and chief operating officer in February 1999 to chairman of ABC Group and president of Walt Disney International. In March 2000, ABC formed the Disney Kids Network (DKN) advertising group via consolidation to sell ads for ABC's "
TGIF" primetime programming,
Disney's One Saturday Morning, the
Disney's One Too syndicated programming block,
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,
The Wonderful World of Disney,
Mickey Mouse and
Winnie the Pooh primetime specials. DKN was placed under senior vice president of sales at ABC, Dan Barnathan, and would also work on some ads with
Radio Disney,
Disney.com and the
Disney Adventures magazine. DKN added
Toon Disney when the channel started accepting ads in September 2000. Iger was named president and chief operating officer of The Walt Disney Company in January 2000. In 2000, with an investment by
Bain Capital and
Chase Capital Partners, Heyward re-purchased DIC Entertainment, L.P. from Disney, making the company re-independent In September 2002, then-Disney Chairman/CEO
Michael Eisner outlined a proposed realignment of the ABC broadcast network's daytime parts with the similar unit in its cable channels: ABC Saturday mornings with
Disney Channel units (
Toon Disney &
Playhouse Disney), ABC daytime with
Soapnet and ABC prime time with ABC Family. In October 2003,
ABC Family Worldwide was changed from a unit directly reporting to the Disney COO to a unit running within the ABC Cable Networks Group under
Anne Sweeney.
Disney–ABC Television Group On April 21, 2004, Disney announced a restructuring of its Disney Media Networks division with Sweeney being named president of Disney–ABC Television Group, and then-ESPN president
George Bodenheimer becoming co-CEO of the division with Sweeney, as well as president of ABC Sports. This move added ABC TV Network within Disney–ABC.
ABC1 channel initially launched in the
United Kingdom on as the first use of the ABC brand outside the US. While
ABC News Now was launched that year in the US on digital subchannel of 70
ABC owned & operated and affiliates. In February 2007, the previous iteration of Touchstone Television was renamed
ABC Television Studio as part of Disney's push to drop secondary brands like Buena Vista for Disney, ABC, ESPN, and most recently,
A&E Networks. ABC1 in the UK was shut down on . On June 12, 2007, Disney spun off its
ABC Radio Networks and merged it into Citadel Communications with
Citadel Broadcasting while retaining its
ESPN Radio and
Radio Disney networks and stations and a 10-year news provider licensing agreement with Citadel for
ABC News Radio and the networks. On January 22, 2009, Disney–ABC announced a merger of
ABC Entertainment and
ABC Studios into ABC Entertainment Group. That April, ABC Enterprises took an ownership stake in
Hulu in exchange for online distribution license and $25 million in the ABC network ad credits. The
Live Well Network (LWN) was launched on April 27, 2009, by
ABC Owned Television Stations on the stations' subchannels. Later that year,
A+E Networks acquired Lifetime Entertainment Services with DATG ownership increasing to 42%. In November, Disney-ABC sells
GMTV to ITV for $37 million. On March 24, 2012, following the dissolution of the ABC Daytime division,
ABC Family Worldwide began taking operational control of
Soapnet until that network was slowly discontinued for
Disney Junior; which would later rebrand to
Disney Jr. on June 1, 2024. In July 2012,
NBCUniversal confirmed plans to sell its 15.8% stake in A+E Networks to Disney for $3 billion (along with its previous owner
Hearst Entertainment & Syndication, who became 50-50 partners in the joint venture). On August 21, 2013, Disney–ABC announced it will lay off 175 employees. The layoffs are expected to hit positions among technical operations as well as the unit's eight local stations. On October 28, ABC News and
Univision Communications launched
Fusion, a cable Hispanic news and satire channel. In August 2014, A+E took a 10% stake in
Vice Media for $250 million, then announced in April 2015 that
H2 would be rebranded into the Vice channel with an indicated early 2016 launch. Disney also directly made two $200 investments in Vice Media in November 2015, then a week later in December, they directly invested in it again for 10% to assist in funding its programming. ABC Family became
Freeform on January 12, 2016. On April 21, 2016, Disney–ABC sold its share in
Fusion to Univision. In September 2016, the group's president
Ben Sherwood named Bruce Rosenblum, Television Academy chairman and former head of Warner Bros. TV Group, as president of business operations in s the newly created position, to reduce the number of direct reports from 17 to about 8. Roseblum would oversee ad sales in conjunction with channel heads, affiliate sales and marketing, engineering, digital media, global distribution, IT, research and strategy and business development. This allows Sherwood to focus on content and direct operating units that continue to directly report to him, ABC network units, cable channel units (Disney Channels Worldwide, and Freeform), ABC Studios and ABC TV Stations. With the March 14, 2018, Disney Company reorganization,
in anticipation of integrating Fox assets from a proposed acquisition, all international channels including Disney Channels have been transferred to
Walt Disney Direct-to-Consumer and International, a new segment, with American channels remaining with Disney–ABC Television Group. All global sales units and distribution units have been transfer to the Disney Direct-to-Consumer segment.
Walt Disney Television On October 8, 2018, Disney announced the division would be rebranded as the second incarnation of
Walt Disney Television following the completion of
its acquisition of
21st Century Fox. The acquisition added
20th Century Fox Television,
FX Networks and
FX Productions,
Fox 21 Television Studios and
National Geographic Global Networks to the division. Fox television executives
Peter Rice, Dana Walden,
John Landgraf and
Gary Knell joined The Walt Disney Company on March 20, 2019. On March 5, 2019, Craig Hunegs was named to lead the combined Disney Television Studios — ABC Studios, ABC Signature, 20th Century Fox Television and Fox 21 Television Studios. He would report to Walden. Following the completed acquisition of the 21st Century Fox assets in March 2019, Disney reorganized its television division to align various operations. On June 10, 2019, Disney announced that both Disney Television Studios and
FX Entertainment would share the same casting division. After assuming full control over
Hulu in May 2019, Disney reorganized Hulu's reporting structure in July 2019, placing Hulu's Scripted Originals team under Walt Disney Television. Under the new structure, Hulu's SVP of Original Scripted Content would report directly to the chairman of Disney Television Studios and ABC Entertainment. On August 10, 2020,
Disney Television Studios rebranded all of its three studios as part of merger terms which required dropping the "Fox" name from assets acquired from 21st Century Fox, with 20th Century Fox Television becoming 20th Television; Fox 21 Television Studios became the second incarnation of Touchstone Television to avoid brand confusion with
Fox Corporation; and ABC Studios merged with the original incarnation of ABC Signature Studios to form the current
ABC Signature. In addition, the original syndication arm of 20th Century Fox Television also called "20th Television" was folded into
Disney–ABC Domestic Television.
Disney General Entertainment Content On October 12, 2020, the division was rechristened as
Disney General Entertainment Content. On December 1, 2020,
Touchstone Television merged and was folded into
20th Television. On February 3, 2021, Disney Television Studios established a new unit known as "Walt Disney Television Alternative", which will be headed by former senior vice president of alternative, specials and late-night series at ABC, Rob Mills, to oversee the development of non-scripted programming.
Disney Entertainment Television In April 2023, the division was again rechristened as
Disney Entertainment Television, according to a news article from
Deadline Hollywood. On October 1, 2024, ABC Signature was folded into 20th Television. ==Leadership==