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.
ABC Innovation
The ABC established its original Multimedia Unit in 1995, to manage the corporation's website (launched in August that year). Although the unit at first relied upon funding allocation to the corporation's television and radio operations, in subsequent budgets it began to receive its own. The ABC provided live, online election coverage for the first time in 1996, although it was not until 1997 that limited news content was provided.