ABC Family is a U.S. cable television network currently owned by Disney/ABC. The network was founded by Pat Robertson in April 1977 as CBN Cable, an arm of his Christian Broadcasting Network. It was the first satellite-launched basic cable network. The CBN Satellite Service grew to 10.9 million homes by May 1981. In September 1981, the format and the name were changed for the first time. CBN Cable Network became an entertainment cable network, providing quality family programming. Under the new format, the CBN Cable Network grew from 28 million households in May 1985, to 35.8 million in May 1987, and by the early 1990s, 47.6 million households.

In September 1988, the word family was incorporated into the name to better reflect the format, becoming the CBN Family Channel. By 1990, the network had grown too profitable to remain under the CBN banner without endangering CBN's nonprofit status. CBN spun it off to a new company called International Family Entertainment (run by Robertson's son, Tim), and the name was changed to simply The Family Channel.

It was sold to Fox Broadcasting Company and Haim Saban in July 1997, and it changed its name to Fox Family. The change from The Family Channel to Fox Family became official on August 15, 1998. As The Family Channel, it attracted an older audience not sought by advertisers, but only about one-third of homes watching the network included kids. When Fox bought the channel in 1997, programmers sought a new dual audience — kids in daytime, families at night.

As part of the agreement when International Family Entertainment sold the network to Fox, The 700 Club aired twice every weekday—live at 10 am Eastern, then repeated at 11 pm Eastern. This arrangement frustrated Fox to no end, as it broke up any attempt to build programming continuity. Due to this, the network was sold again to ABC in July 2001 for $3.2 billion. Under Fox's ownership, the Family Channel saw its ranking slide from 10th to 17th place as a result of an increasingly competitive race for younger viewers and the bickering over ownership between News Corp. and Saban. Some observers believe that Fox Family chased away some of the older viewers and never really replaced the core audience. As a result, prime time ratings declined 35% in the past three years.

The sale to ABC included the Fox Kids Network (a joint venture of Fox and Haim Saban) which provided the new ABC Family with hours of children's programming. However, ABC Family must still air The 700 Club every weekday. ABC Family has made several TV movies and plays many reruns, often of programming that was first run on ABC. The American version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? is frequently aired. The channel also airs reruns of 7th Heaven and sitcoms Full House, Step by Step, and Family Matters. In 2004, the channel began airing reruns of Boy Meets World, Smallville, and Gilmore Girls (two of the three currently airing on The WB). In 2005 ABC Family began airing Grounded for Life and in 2008 My Wife and Kids will start airing.

• ABC Family website
• Family Channel takes on Fox look
• Disney buying Fox Family Channel
• Disney refocusing Family channel