Freeform and its Complicated History (Part 3)
Alright, you guys have waited long enough for this.
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At the time of the Fox Family Worldwide sale, the CEO of The Walt Disney Company was Michael Eisner, who had become notorious for his "micromanaging" leadership style and impulsive business decisions. Unsurprisingly, the transition from Fox Family to ABC Family was a pretty good reflection of those flaws.
The original plan was for ABC Family to air reruns of namesake ABC's programming, even though much of those series came from studios outside the Mouse House and thus were bound to other pay-TV channels through syndication rights. Additionally, any attempt at falling back on kids' programming flew out the window now that ABC Family was under the same corporate roof as its soon-to-be sister Disney Channel.
With this, the previous Fox Family lineup slowly vanished in favor of more general audience programs, grouping all remaining Fox Kids series into a weekday morning "Action Block" – a timeslot later used by Disney to establish the Jetix brand. ABC Family's version of Jetix hosted the Ninja Storm, SPD, and Wild Force iterations of Power Rangers, alongside cartoons such as Beyblade, Digimon, Get Ed, Medabots, and Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!.
In 2006, executives finally decided on ABC Family's new focus: the teen and young adult crowd. Jetix made its full-time move to Toon Disney during this period, but that didn't bring an end to the channel's family content. While 13 Nights of Halloween (later 31 Nights) and 25 Days of Christmas continued to play seasonal hits, ABC Family would make a habit of airing Disney/Pixar films whenever they could (typically in weekend-long marathons), culminating in the 2014 launch of FunDay Weekend. The new block also introduced non-Disney animated titles to the lineup, including DreamWorks Animation and Illumination Entertainment films.
ABC Family occasionally relied on content from Disney Channel, airing DCOMs like High School Musical and Camp Rock. This escalated in 2015 when a month-long block called That's So Throwback began airing older DC series like Kim Possible, That's So Raven, and Hannah Montana.
The 25 Days of Christmas branding expanded to include holiday programming on Freeform's sister properties ABC and Disney Channel in 2017. Several Rankin/Bass Christmas specials would leave the channel that year, moving to AMC's new holiday block Best Christmas Ever.
Finally, in September 2019, Freeform introduced a one-time monthly block to its schedule: the 30 Days of Disney. In the vein of 25 Days and 31 Nights, this programming theme celebrated "all things Disney" with a lineup of movies dedicated to villains, pirates, sing-alongs, and more from all of Disney's properties.
Which leads us to today. I don’t think Freeform will ever drop its non-YA content, not because it’ll impact their ratings, but because they probably found out their audiences has nostalgia for that kind of stuff.
