During the golden age of radio in the 1920s, the Radio Corp. of America (RCA) purchased the New York radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T). Along with the deal came the acquisition of the two sister channels, WCAP in Washington and WRC in New York. These two sister stations merged their efforts into one and in November of 1926, the National Broadcasting Co. (NBC), was formed. Soon afterward, WEAF became part of NBC as well.
In January of 1927, NBC, which had been in operation through two different stations in the same market, officially divided into what would be called NBC Red and NBC Blue. NBC Red was the flagship network, with the majority of their hit radio shows and sponsorship being represented.
In 1927, both NBC and the other large radio network, CBS, were part of an investigation by the the Federal Communications Commission for infringement of anti-competition laws. The decision was made that there could be only one network owned per company per market, which meant that NBC had to sell off one of its companies. In 1943, NBC sold its Blue division to self-made millionaire Edward J. Noble, the conservative businessman behind LifeSavers candy. Thinking that the Blue Network was not the best name, he decided to rename the company, preferably something that started with the letter "A," so it would appear first alphabetically. The American Broadcasting Co. was created as a result.
Throughout its infancy, ABC retained the Blue Network in a variety of regions to promote name recognition. This led to many programs being labeled under “ABC” or “Blue Network.” To further add to the confusion, in its first year of operation, the competitor CBS had the call letters WABC for its flagship network in New York. CBS finally switched its call letters to WCBS and soon after ABC claimed WABC for its own.
ABC became a contender in the competition with CBS and NBC, called the "big three." With very few "hit" shows, Noble paid to acquire more stations, including WXYZ in Detroit. This was the home to popular radio programs such as “The Lone Ranger” and “The Green Hornet.” This bolstered it as a network and made it a force to reckon with. Towards the late 1940s, however, a transition into television was taking place, and ABC found itself floundering and near bankruptcy due to the large costs incurred in starting and maintaining a radio network. ABC Television officially went on the air in 1948, despite these rocky financial times for the network.
At the verge of bankruptcy and struggling to transition into television, ABC was not on the air for even five years when the first merger occurred with ABC. In 1953 United Paramount Theatres Inc., which was a division of Paramount Studios, purchased ABC. During this time, ABC bounced back from the verge of bankruptcy to land themselves on top of "The Big Three" in television markets across the country. This was due to the success of prime time shows like "Bewitched," "The Mod Squad" and "The Brady Bunch." In January of 1977, an eight-part mini-series garnered ABC enormous success with an adaptation of the Alex Haley novel "Roots," scoring higher rating than any other program in history, at the time. Also boosting ABC was Roone Arledge, formerly of NBC, who came to ABC to create "ABC's Wild World of Sports." Arledge, who also created "Monday Night Football," would go on to become president of ABC News, where he would help create news programs such as "20/20" and "Nightline."
For more than 30 years, ABC was part of United Paramount until it was acquired by Capital Cities Communications in 1986. Capital Cities Communications was a part of ABC for only 10 years, but during that time, it was hoping to continue with the successes that ABC had seen in the 1970s and 1980s. But as the world changed, the tastes in television did as well. NBC had taken the lead in programming ratings, and so ABC needed to restructure itself in the market. It focused on developing a string of situation comedies like "Perfect Strangers," and "Growing Pains." It came up with a solution to the mediocre Friday evening ratings with "TGIF," which was a lineup of family oriented comedies like "Full House" and "Step by Step." The network prospered during this decade, despite falling from the top of the three.
In 1996, Disney purchased ABC, which subsequently saw a decline in ratings and programming. This decline was bolstered briefly by the show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" in 1999. In 2004, Disney decided to overhaul its programming, as well as diversify the product it promoted. Hit shows like "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" were successful and helped pull ABC out of a downturn. As of 2010, ABC is still a property of Disney.