ABC Family, which has a unique history, is oddly enough finally finding that it had what it wanted all along.
The original channel was the creation of evangelist Pat Robertson in 1977 to introduce and promote the show "The 700 Club."
From there the media heavyweights Rupert Murdoch and Haim Saban bought it for $1.9 billion. Fox Family struggled with some of its children's programming when former Disney CEO Michael Eisner took an interest. Disney bought the channel (along with its foreign assets) for $5.3 billion including both cash and debt acquisition.
It fell in value for several years as Disney tried to put reruns from their ABC shows on the channel. It didn't work at all.
They tried to change things by getting rid of the ABC Family name and changing it to sound more with the times. A contractual stipulation that the word "family" must remain in the title kept it from doing it.
(It was part of the original agreement when Robertson sold the channel to Murdoch and Saban.)
It's strange that ABC Family had the right moniker from the beginning. They finally did some studies and found that in the 18 - 28 age group, family was the most important thing to them.
ABC Family President Paul Lee said "Family drama is alive and well and people are rediscovering it, we felt we could take a brand that maybe had looked away from its core word and say, `Hold on, we can reclaim this word.'"
Like Disney and the movies they are producing, they are finding out that family is one of the most consistent, profitable themes that entertainment can cater to. It's odd to see them take this long to find it out.
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