freeform

ABC Family to Change Network Name in January for New Audience Reach

Announced on Tuesday, the popular Disney owned television station, ABC Family, will undergo a name change. Coming this January, the network will be called Freeform.

This change comes as more and more series are being targeted to audiences in the age range of 14-34, according to Entertainment Weekly. ABC Family is known for having hit shows such as Pretty Little Liars, The Fosters and Young and Hungry.

freeform

Tom Ascheim, ABC Family president, told Entertainment Weekly, “For us, this doesn’t feel like a radical depature, this is an evolution. For the last 10-to-12 years, we’ve been targeting young people, Millennnials, and then something happened. Millennials started getting older. The oldest ones are nearly 40. So do we follow Millennials or stay with the ‘life stage’ that got us here?”

Ascheim also went on to say, “Like any growing business, we want to keep our core customers satisfied, but also add new ones – and they had a cliched sense of who we are. The word ‘Family’ sounds overly loud to their ears and that makes it a barrier to them coming into our ecosystem.”

The article goes on to say that the ‘Family’ part of the network name may have been too strong or too strict. Some audiences did not like the feel.

What are your thoughts on the network changing their name to Freeform? Does it fit better with the array of shows that are being presented?

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