ABC

The ABC Television Network (ABC being short for American Broadcasting Companies) in the United States is a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. "The ABC Television Network includes ABC Entertainment, ABC Daytime, ABC News, ABC Sports, ABC Kids and the Disney-owned production company Touchstone Television. ABC Owned Television Stations operates 10 stations in top markets across the country," the company states on its website. "Disney Media Networks comprise a vast array of broadcast, cable, radio, publishing and Internet businesses." ABC was created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue network and first broadcast on television in 1948. [1]

The Walt Disney Company bought ABC in 1996. "The network produces many of its own shows through Touchstone Television and Buena Vista Television. The network reported sales of $11.8 billion in 2004, and is a major part of the Walt Disney media empire," Media Owners reports. [2]

In 2007, ABC sold ABC Radio Networks to Citadel Broadcasting.

Spinning September 11

The Firedoglake weblog has featured an article by Sheldon Rampton describing the ABC television network's plan to broadcast The Path to 9/11, a right-wing "docudrama" that placed a lion’s share of the blame for the 9/11 terrorist attacks on alleged failures of the Clinton administration. Under fire, ABC erased the show’s official blog after it attracted multiple comments from the public criticizing the film's inaccuracies. However, a Google cache of the blog still exists. ThinkProgress.org has saved a copy of some of the content that the Google cache missed.

Using A Video News Release

ABC News network was documented airing a video news release by the Center for Media and Democracy, in its November 2006 report "Still Not the News: Stations Overwhelmingly Fail to Disclose VNRs. [3]

Contact details

77 W. 66th St., 3rd Fl.
New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-456-7777
Fax: 212-456-1424
Web: http://abc.go.com

Related SourceWatch articles

• Clinton administration anti-terrorism law
• Fake news
• Journalism
• journalists
• media
• Media corporations
• media reform
• media trends
• "The Path to 9/11" (2006 Docudrama)
• Preston R. Padden - former president

External links

• Sheldon Rampton, "Hijacking 9/11", Firedoglake, September 4, 2006.
• Jim Naureckas, "Long History, Short Memories: ABC Was Born Out of Fear of Media Consolidation", Extra!, November/December 1995.
• "ABC Television Network", Media Owners, accessed March 2006.
• Jonathan Kark, The Pentagon's Propaganda Machine? Increasingly the Pentagon Channel Is Used To Disseminate Official Information Without Press Interference, ABC News online, April 21, 2008.