American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. - Specimen Stock Certificate

Specimen Stock printed by Security-Columbian Banknote Company. 

The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) is a prominent American commercial broadcast television network. It serves as the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division of The Walt Disney Company. Headquartered in Burbank, California, on Riverside Drive, ABC is situated directly across the street from Walt Disney Studios and adjacent to the Roy E. Disney Animation Building. The network also maintains secondary offices in New York City, where its news division headquarters are located at its broadcast center on 77 West 66th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

Since 2007, when ABC Radio (formerly known as Cumulus Media Networks) was acquired by Citadel Broadcasting, ABC has significantly reduced its broadcasting operations, primarily focusing on television. As the youngest of the “Big Three� U.S. television networks, ABC is often referred to as the Alphabet Network, as its initialism also represents the first three letters of the English alphabet in order.

ABC’s journey began in 1943 when it launched as a radio network, succeeding the NBC Blue Network, which had been acquired by Edward J. Noble. In 1948, the network expanded its operations into television, following in the footsteps of established broadcast networks like CBS, NBC, and the lesser-known DuMont.

In the mid-1950s, ABC made a strategic move by merging with United Paramount Theatres (UPT), a prominent chain of movie theaters that had previously operated as a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures. Leonard Goldenson, who had been the head of UPT, played a pivotal role in transforming the new television network into a profitable entity. Under Goldenson’s leadership, ABC successfully developed and greenlit numerous successful series, contributing to its growth and success. In the 1980s, after acquiring an 80 percent stake in cable sports channel ESPN, the network’s parent company, American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., merged with Capital Cities Communications, the owner of several print publications, television, and radio stations. In 1996, most of Capital Cities/ABC’s assets were acquired by Disney. Today, ABC operates eight owned-and-operated television stations and has over 230 affiliated stations across the United States and its territories. Some ABC-affiliated stations are also available in Canada through pay-television providers, and certain others can be received over-the-air in areas near the Canada-United States border. However, most of its prime-time programming is subject to simultaneous substitution regulations imposed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to protect the rights of domestically based networks. Additionally, ABC News provides news and features content for select radio stations owned by Cumulus Media, as these stations were former ABC Radio properties.

Read More

Read Less