The ABC Family cable channel will be renamed Freeform Tuesday in an attempt to increase its viewership by having people who don’t watch it correctly perceive its programming, its president said.
In a speech at the channel’s portion of the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, channel President Tom Ascheim said it had conducted surveys among both viewers and non-viewers last year. Nonviewers considered ABC Family “family-friendly” and wholesome, Ascheim said.
“Who doesn’t want to be family-friendly and wholesome?” Ascheim asked. “We’re delighted to be family-friendly and wholesome. But it’s kind of specific and it’s not particularly representative of who we are.”
Channel executives “went through thousands” of potential new names, Ascheim said..
The new name, which was announced on Oct. 6, evokes the audience the channel is seeking, Ascheim said. The channel has dubbed them as “Becomers,” people ages 14 to 34, “between your first kiss and your first kid,” Ascheim said.
“Becomers really are in formation kind of freely,” Ascheim said. “It seems to speak to our target in a really specific and wonderful way.
“It also elicits this moment in our media heritage, a time when we’re all experiencing content coming in every kind of package, shape, size, format and on any screen. It oozes from place to place and form to form. Freeform seems to promise that we will be able to deliver on that expectation that our young audience in particular is having.
“Freeform evokes a mood, a sense of spontaneity, creativity. It’s a place where the parties are better. It’s a place (where) I know that I would like to spend a lot of time and I’m sure our audience is going to want to spend a lot of time too,” he said over the weekend.
Coinciding with the name change are the winter premiere of the teen mystery thriller “Pretty Little Liars” at 8 p.m. and the premiere of fantasy series “Shadowhunters” at 9 p.m.
Freeform will conduct a daylong multiplatform social event today to mark the name change.
Beginning at 8 a.m., fans tweeting @FreeformTV using the hashtag #FreeformLaunch will receive a reply tweet that includes a unique piece of 3-D digital art based on a sentiment analysis of their Twitter feed.
Fans will then have the opportunity to enter an instant win sweepstakes to receive one of 5,000 unique 3-D printed wearable art representing their Twitter personality.
The social event will also include a live stream of events via Periscope; a Vine booth; a BuzzFeed Facebook Live chat; Instagram content; and a “Pretty Little Liars” Snapchat filter.
—City News Service