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.
American Broadcasting Company
Due to pressure from film studios wanting to increase their production, as the major networks began airing theatrically released films, ABC joined CBS and NBC in broadcasting films on Sunday nights in 1962, with the launch of the "ABC Sunday Night Movie", which debuted a year behind its competitors and was initially presented in black-and-white. Despite a significant increase in viewership (with its audience share having increased to 33% from the 15% share it had in 1953), ABC remained in third place; the company had a total revenue of $15.5 million, a third of the revenue pulled in by CBS at the same period. To catch up, ABC followed up "The Flintstones" with another animated series from Hanna-Barbera, "The Jetsons", which debuted on September 23, 1962 as the first television series to be broadcast in color on the network. On April 1, 1963, ABC debuted the soap opera "General Hospital", which would go on to become the television network's long-running entertainment program. That year also saw the premiere of "The Fugitive" (on September 17), a drama series centering on a man on the run after being accused of committing a murder he did not commit.