History
The company was created in 1953 by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) as ABC Films.
In 1971, as a result of the fin-syn rules, the FCC barred the participation of networks in the syndication of their own programs. ABC Films was spun off and renamed Worldvision on March 30, 1973.
Their home video division released numerous Hanna-Barbera titles and Jack Nicklaus' Golf My Way instructional video series. They were also responsible for the television distribution of a majority of the Carolco Pictures feature film library (inherited from Orbis Communications, which was a division of Carolco before the studio went bankrupt).
Worldvision has been owned by many companies over the years. The growth of its home video division was primarily under the ownership of Taft Broadcasting, which acquired the company in 1979 (and coincidentally had a good relationship with ABC, as most of Taft's VHF TV stations were affiliated with that network). In 1988, Great American Broadcasting, the successor to Taft, sold much of the Taft Entertainment Company, including Worldvision, to Aaron Spelling Productions and became part of Spelling, Inc. - the rights to most of the Taft Entertainment library were included.
In later years, Aaron Spelling consolidated his companies, and Worldvision as a wholly functioning unit ceased to exist and became folded into Republic Pictures (which Spelling bought in 1994), although Worldvision as a distribution unit continued for many years after until Spelling/Republic merged with Viacom (which also started as a syndication arm of a television network, in this case CBS) in 1999, the same year Viacom announced its acquisition of former parent CBS (completed in 2000). These mergers allowed Viacom to become the second-largest media conglomerate in the world. Viacom later renamed itself to CBS Corporation and spun off its basic cable and motion picture interests into a "new" Viacom (for its impact on the former Worldvision library, see below).
FremantleMedia acquired some of Worldvision's program catalog for certain territories outside the U.S.
Read more about this topic: Worldvision Enterprises
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