Leonard Goldenson
Goldenson orchestrated the merger of United Paramount Theatres with ABC in 1953 (after Paramount was ordered to spin it off in the wake of "United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.", a 1948 decree of the U.S. Supreme Court). ABC was originally formed in 1943 in the wake of an earlier Supreme Court decree effectively ordering the spinoff of the largely secondary-status "Blue Network" from its then-parent, NBC; its buyer, industrialist Edward J. Noble, tried to build ABC into a competitive Broadcasting company, but by 1951 was rumored to be on the verge of selling the nearly bankrupt operation to CBS, whose management apparently wanted ABC's critically important owned-and-operated television stations.
List of production companies owned by the American Broadcasting Company
By the 1994-95 season, ABC Productions was providing half of ABC's regular series programming. DreamWorks Television was formed in December 1994 as DreamWorks Studios agreed to a $200 million seven-year TV production joint venture with Capital Cities/ABC. ABCP placed "The Boys are Back" with CBS for the 1994-1995 season.