Disney Entertainment Television

History

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.

Disney–ABC Television Group

In 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 September 27, 2004 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 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 September 26, 2007.

In 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.

In 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.

In 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.

Also in 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).

In 2013, Disney–ABC announced it would lay off 175 employees. The layoffs covered positions among technical operations as well as the unit's eight local stations. Despite the downsizing, ABC News and Univision Communications launched Fusion, a cable Hispanic news and satire channel later in 2013.

Walt Disney Television

In 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. 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 2019, Disney reorganized its television division to align various operations. They announced that both Disney Television Studios and FX Entertainment would share the same casting division. After assuming full control over Hulu in 2019, Disney reorganized Hulu's reporting structure, 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.

In 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

In 2020, the division was rechristened as Disney General Entertainment Content. Touchstone Television merged and was folded into 20th Television.

In 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 2023, the division was again rechristened as Disney Entertainment Television, according to a news article from Deadline Hollywood. In 2024, ABC Signature was folded into 20th Television.

Units

Current structure

As of July 2025, the following are the current units based on reporting structure:

Walt Disney Television and Telecommunications (WDTT) was a division of The Walt Disney Company. At the time Disney and Capital Cities/ABC merged, WDTT's divisions were The Disney Channel, KCAL-TV Los Angeles, Walt Disney Television, Touchstone Television, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, and Disney Interactive.

In 1994, with Jeffrey Katzenberg's resignation, a reorganization of Disney took place in which Richard H. Frank became head of newly formed Walt Disney Television and Telecommunications, which was split from its filmed entertainment business, Walt Disney Studios. Later that year, Walt Disney Computer Software was transferred within WDTT as Disney Interactive. At the end of his contract in 1995, Frank left Disney. Dennis Hightower, a marketing executive, was appointed by April 9 to succeed Frank.

In 1996, due to ongoing post-Disney-CC/ABC merger realignment and the retirement of Hightower as president, WDTT's divisions were reassigned to other groups, with most of them transferred to either The Walt Disney Studios or CC/ABC. KCAL was sold to Young Broadcasting in 1996 due to CC/ABC ownership of KABC-TV.