Dive Brief:

• If you are a fan of cable network ABC Family, come January you will be watching Freeform, its new moniker.
• The new branding is an effort to better reflect its audience, which tends toward female millennials rather than families.
• Freeform will join a number of cable networks that changed names over the last several years including, Pop (previously TV Guide Network), Fox Sports 1 (previously Speed Channel), and NBCSN (previously Versus).

Dive Insight:

Seeking to better fit its programming and audience, Disney’s ABC Family will become Freeform in January. The cable network had been more focused on kids during the daytime and family-friendly shows at night, but going back around 10 years the programming became somewhat edgier and more targeted to teens and young adults, eventually acquiring a largely female millennial viewership.

According to the network, the name Freeform "speaks to the mindset and attitude of what the channel has defined as Becomers," a demographic of younger millennials estimated at 69 million and with trillions in spending power. ABC Family President Tom Ascheim said Freeform’s target viewers range from “first kiss” to “first kid.”

Rebranding via a name change isn’t unheard of in the cable industry, and Ascheim told The Wall Street Journal, “To recruit new customers we faced a perception problem.” He added that Freeform would fit in with digital brands such as Facebook, Snapchat and Netflix on mobile devices.