This week, “What I Like About You” is a funny show but hardly appropriate for children. And now they have “That 70s Show,” a show features plenty of sexual frankness and a drug circle in very episode. Very entertaining show, but again doesn’t belong on network TV. Oh, and they are also showing “Mean Girls” in which a little girl practices raising her shirt up while watching “Girls Gone Wild” videos. Yes, that’s exactly the kind of modeling behavior that every daddy wants his little girl to see.

The network has also shown “The Bachelor,” which is also a show that is far divorced from the traditional conceptualization of families. I don’t really have a problem with these shows; it just seems oxymoronic to have them on a network called ABC Family.

So what gives? Why call a network “ABC Family” when there’s nothing Family about it.

When ABC purchased Fox Family in 2001, part of the contract insisted that the network retain the name “Family” in it forever. That stipulation was one of two made by previous owner Reverend Pat Robertson (the other stipulation being that his show run in the evening time). So even though the programming diverged extremely from what any rational human being would deem “family-oriented,” they were stuck with the name.

The best ABC could do is try to relabel their network as “A different kind of family,” the kind of family you watch in all its dysfunctional glory to appreciate your family even more.

The out-of-place name is just the very public reminder of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s biggest blunder. He paid over $5 billion for the network when its value was really around $2 to $3 billion, and its value is spiraling downwards. Parents don’t want their kids watching ABC Family because of the content, and adults don’t want to watch something called ABC Family.

Adding to the blunder is that the network has little original programs (although it’s adding a show about teen pregnancy, trying to capitalize on the success of the movie “Juno,” but that just serves to reinforce how un-family ABC Family is). Then, there’s Robertson who nightly starts controversy, particularly offending the oversensitive, somewhat Christian-hating, American left.

Meanwhile, the channel is left for some to occasionally stumble across and watch and wonder, “How is that show on a family channel!” The true legacy of Michael Eisner’s biggest fumble.

Source: Written by TV Stevie http://tvstevie.wordpress.com/