ABC

ABC is a television network owned by The Walt Disney Company. After its near-destruction following the Great Regis Philbin Plague of the late 1990s, and a brief attempt at a lineup composed entirely of reality television, a pair of successful television programs about improbably attractive disaster survivors and improbably attractive suburban housewives allowed it to regain a semblance of ratings success. Those programs have since been joined by a series about improbably attractive doctors, and a show in which a functionally retarded man and his cadre of hangers-on travel the country giving away free houses to the deserving poor.
==Historical Background==
﻿In 1940, the FCC ruled that no company should be so powerful that it controls more than one broadcast network. As a result, NBC had to divest itself of its less-profitable "Blue Network." This network was spun off as the new American Broadcasting Company.
Burdened with a series of public-affairs shows hosted by unpopular personalities such as Lawrence Welk and Leon Trotsky, ABC struggled in the ratings. It was only in the late '60s and early '70s, when shows such as The Brady Bunch and Bewitched hit it big, that ABC became a success. The capper on ABC's historical rise was the premiere of Monday Night Football, a series spotlighting highlights from the previous weekend's soccer matches in the English Premier League.
==Notable Shows==
*﻿Alias
*The Brady Bunch
*Commander-in-Chief
*Charlie's Angels
*Cupid
*Desperate Housewives
*The Evidence
*Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
*The Greatest American Hero
*Grey's Anatomy
*Happy Days
*It's Like, You Know...
*Lost
*The Love Boat
*Matlock
*Monday Night Football
*Mulholland Dr.
*No Soap, Radio
*NYPD Blue
*Police Squad!
*The TGIF comedy block
*Twin Peaks
*Webster
*Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
==External Links==
*﻿ABC: The Reality Network