The channel that has been known as ABC Family over the past 15 years (and was a couple of other names before that) will change its name once more on Tuesday to something strange: Freeform.
It sounds like a 1970s FM rock radio format or a brand of bra, but it’s custom made for its audience.
Even more strange is the term for the 14-34 demographic they’re chasing: Becomers.
“It’s a life stage,” says network chief Tom Ascheim of “becomers.” “It’s that place between childhood and adulthood. Proverbially we say between your first kiss and your first kid. Kind of starts in high school, goes till, I don’t know, when you’re 20 or something, maybe 30. We want to find a name that evokes that audience, and we think ‘Freeform’ is it.”
To choose Freeform, Ascheim told reporters Saturday at the TV Critics Association winter press tour, “we went through a really rigorous process. We went through thousands of names. It was tiring and tiresome, but we found a name that we really love that did really well in research.”
But, he adds, “it’s more than the data. And ‘Freeform,’ for me, says three things that are really important. It evokes this audience that we’ve spoken about of Becomers really are in formation kind of freely.”
One thing that won’t change with the name is one of the oddest relationships in TV: The nightly showing of Pat Robertson’s Christian conservative mainstay “The 700 Club,” which plays after the prime time hours filled with increasingly provocative fare.
When I asked specifically about this, Ascheim said, “nothing about our name change affects our relationship with ‘The 700 Club.’”
Robertson says the deal runs “in perpetuity.” But how do shows like “Pretty Little Liars” intersect with the piety and right wing politics of “The 700 Club?”
“We don’t actually particularly talk to them a whole lot about our programming strategy,” Ascheim said, carefully choosing his words. “We update them every so often. I imagine they might have made different choices, but that’s the nature of our relationship. We don’t have to worry about each other’s choices.”
The network began life in 1977 as CBN Satellite Service, a part of Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network. It became CBN cable network in 1981, adding some old movies and family series amid its relentless televangelists. It first used the word Family in its name when The CBN Family Channel and then to just the Family Channel in 1990 when its profitability threatened the ministry’s non-profit status.
News Corporation bought the channel in 1997 and made it Fox Family the following year. But ratings slipped and Fox sold it to Disney for it to become ABC Family in 2001.
Freeform is the first time that “Family” hasn’t been part of the network name in 39 years. Ascheim says having “Family” forever in the name isn’t part of the agreement Robertson made when he sold the station.
But showing “The 700 Club” apparently is, currently airing twice daily at 9:30 a.m. and 11 p.m.
Will that go on forever?
“Forever is such a long time,” Ascheim replied a little peevishly. “It’s a little hard to define.”
But he added, “I would not want to deprive you all of the chance to ask about it every year. So I think, for the moment, it will continue as it is, and then, we will check in again next time.”