American Broadcasting Company

This page covers the US American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network, now part of the Disney conglomerate. (A profile of the unrelated Australian public broadcaster ABC is here.)

     ABC

The ABC was originally established during the 1920s as the second radio network - the so-called Blue Network - of the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), a subsidiary of manufacturing giant General Electric.

In 1941 the Federal Communication Commission, seeking to increase competition, ordered that NBC spin off one of its networks. That decision was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1943. The company understandably disposed of the less successful Blue Network, selling it to candy manufacturer Edward Noble.

Problems with affiliates and programming meant that Noble was unable to reap significant profits from ABC. In 1948 the five Warner Brothers considered buying ABC but did not proceed with the deal. A year later the US Department of Justice ordered the major Hollywood studios to spin off their cinema operations, a decision that's often regarded as the deathknell for the 'studio system'. Paramount Studios (subsequently a major component of the Viacom conglomerate), established United Paramount Theatres (UPT).

To comply with DOJ requirements UPT had to sell some of its assets and was thus sufficiently cashed-up to take ABC off Noble's hands in 1951. That deal was formally approved by the FCC in 1953.

During the late forties and early fifties the viability of Disney Studios was uncertain, with poor labour relations and a bailout from Howard Hughes. Disney failed to interest Wall Street in his Disneylandia theme park vision. In 1954 ABC invested US$500 000 in cash and guaranteed Disney bank loans, in turn receiving 35% ownership of Disneylandia and all profits from the park's food concessions. By 1960 Disneyland's cash flow was so large that Disney could buy out the network.

In 1986 Capital Cities Communications bought a by-then ailing ABC for US$3.5 billion, creating Capital Cities-ABC.

In 1995 Capital Cities-ABC was in turn engulfed by Disney for US$19 billion.

A chronology of ABC is here. An indication of Disney holdings is here.

     Studies

There are no major studies of ABC from its establishment to absorption by Disney. Overviews of the US networks and broadcasting are highlighted here.

Ken Auletta's Three Blind Mice: How The Television Networks Lost Their Way (New York: Random House 91) extends the account in David Halberstam's The Powers That Be (New York: Knopf 79) about the three major US networks and papers such as the Washington Post in the 1970s to the early 1990s. Mice is richer than Auletta's disappointing The Highwaymen - Warriors of the Information Superhighway (New York: Random House 97).

UPT and ABC chief executive Leonard Goldenson's Beating the Odds: The Untold Story Behind the Rise of ABC (New York: Scribner 91) offers an account of the television rating wars. It's more perceptive than Sterling Quinlan's Inside ABC (New York: Hasting House 79) and Huntington Williams' Beyond Control: ABC & the Fate of the Networks (New York: Atheneum 89). James Baughman's 'The Weakest Chain & the Strongest Link: The American Broadcasting Company & the Motion Picture Industry 1952-60' in Hollywood In The Age of Television (Boston: Unwin Hyman 90) edited by Tino Balio is concise and lucid. For the following decade see Les Brown's Television: The Business Behind the Box (New York: Harcourt Brace 71).

For studies of Disney's history, output and operation see the separate Disney pages on this site. These include Ron Grover's The Disney Touch: Disney, ABC & the Quest for the World's Greatest Media Empire (Chicago: Irvin 97) and Michael Eisner's intensely self-regarding Work in Progress (New York: Random 98) - of value for Disney's decision to buy ABC.

     DuMont

The DuMont network, dead and buried for 40 years, has a memorial site.

Gary Hess' An Historical Study of the DuMont Television Network (New York: Ayer 79) reflects its origin as a doctoral thesis: worthy but hardly the stuff of which dreams are made. We recommend David Halberstam's The Fifties (New York: Villard 94).




     next page  (ABC chronology)