ABC Family Worldwide Inc.

ABC Family Worldwide Inc. is a producer and distributor of family entertainment and information programming worldwide. The company is owned by The Walt Disney Company and was founded in 1990 by Pat Robertson as International Family Entertainment Inc. ABC Family Worldwide's principal business is ABC Family, a satellite delivered cable-television network. The company is located in Burbank, California.

History

 * 1977: Robertson's CBN created CBN Cable.
 * 1988: CBN Cable was renamed The CBN Family Channel.
 * 1990: International Family Entertainment, Inc. (IFE) was formed by Pat Robertson. This acquired The CBN Family Channel from CBN, renaming it The Family Channel.
 * 1992: IFE acquired TVS Entertainment (a former ITV franchise holder for the South of England) archive for $68.5 million, which included the MTM Enterprises library.
 * 1996: News Corporation's Fox Children's Productions and Haim Saban's Saban Entertainment merged to form Fox Kids Worldwide, Inc.  Its 61% share in the UK channel was sold to flextech given them full control of the channel. The deal also included Maidstone studios but Family channel held on to the TV archive which consented of TVS Entertainment but more importantly MTM Enterprises library.


 * June 11, 1997: Fox Kids Worldwide, Inc. (FKW) acquired IFE, a publicly held company listed on the New York Stock Exchange for $1.9 billion. FKW was renamed Fox Family Worldwide, Inc.
 * 1998: IFE and MTM archives were folded into 20th Century Fox Television.
 * August 15, 1998: The Family Channel was renamed Fox Family Channel.
 * October 24, 2001: The Walt Disney Company acquired Fox Family Worldwide for US$5.3 billion ($2.9 billion cash plus $2.3 billion in debt assumption). The company was renamed ABC Family Worldwide, Inc. and the channel was renamed ABC Family. The Fox Kids brand would remain in use for three more years.
 * 2004-2005: Fox Kids was renamed Jetix.
 * 2010: Jetix was renamed Disney XD.
 * 2012: ABCFW takes operational control of Soapnet towards the start of March and begins programming the network with the dissolution of the ABC Daytime division and the slow discontinuation of that network to launch Disney Junior.