NBC Family

NBC Family was an American Television network that was owned by NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The channel was first launched on December 25, 1978 as the American Christian Network (ACN) and was originally focused on religious programming targeting Christians. The channel would eventually undergo a rebrand following the network's acquisition by MCA in 1986 with the network rebranding to Retrovision. With the demographic switching from Christians to a general family audience and then NBC Family in 2004 following Universal's merger with NBC. Before the closure, it targeted children between the ages of 9 and 14.

The channel's United States feed would officially be discontinued on September 9, 2017 following it's merger with sister network Sprout to produce Universal Kids with other NBC Family networks closing down throughout 2017 until 2019. The final NBC Family channel to remain was in France, when it was acquired by TF1 Group and ceased broadcasting on January 31, 2021 when it was replaced by TFKids.

Early Years
NBC Family was first launched in 1978 as the American Christian Network. A sister network to the CBN Satellite Service. It, along with its sister network, HBO, Nickelodeon, and TBS were the first ever TV networks to broadcast on Satellite. However, unlike CBN, ACN broadcasted only for 16 hours day with a Bible verse appearing between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM.

The channel was often considered worse than the CBN Satellite Service, as it often experiences power outages and the channel's time was cut further when it lost the 6 PM to 10 PM slots in 1983. This was considered bad news for the channel as it would mean less viewers and less money for the CBN service.

In September 1985, the channel was placed up for sale by CBN and there were four bidders: Warner Communications, MCA, The Walt Disney Company, and Viacom. The following month, the channel was announced that a sale was pending to be sold off to MCA following Disney and Viacom abandoning its bid and Warner Communications' bid being rejected. The channel was completely transferred over to MCA in April 1986.

MCA Era
After MCA's acquisition of the American Christian Network, the channel was rebranded to "Retrovision". With that, the network's time was expanded to 24 hours a day and aired older sitcoms from the 60s and earlier. Unlike former sister network The Family Channel, Retrovision wasn't forced to air The 700 Club, which made it a winner among other groups aside from Christians. Retrovision would gain more popularity in 1992 following the major broadcast networks shift to an adult audience.

In 1996, Retrovision launched an afternoon block targeting children known as NAA! (No Adults Allowed!). NAA was created by a joint venture between MCA and animation studio DIC Entertainment. The block was considered a semi-success among the 2-17 audience and MCA had plans of making a 24-hour version of the block, but they went against the idea to prevent Retrovision from becoming too profitable. NAA would eventually be discontinued in 2004 following NBC's merger with Universal.

NBCUniversal Era
In 2004, NBC and Universal merged to produce the NBCUniversal corporation. As an effort to compete with Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, Retrovision would shift its focus to youths following a similar model to the NAA! block they aired. With that, several animated programming from the Universal library were added and ratings would be very successful for the network.

In 2006, the network introduced an adult-oriented nighttime block by the name of Freevision. A programming block that would express "freedom for the Television industry from the attack of censorship". The block would go on to compete with Cartoon Network's Adult Swim and Nickelodeon's Nick@Nite blocks. The block was considered a hit with (ironically) children due to the mature nature of the block compared to the NBC Family lineup. This would later spawn a controversy with the PTC so they had to quietly discontinue Freevision in 2009.

In 2013, the network would introduce sister network Sprout as a daytime programming block that would air daily from 8 AM to 1 PM (later 6 AM to 6 PM starting in December 2014 and then from 5:30 AM to 10 PM starting in November 2016). This would later spawn rumors that NBC Family would rebrand into another preschool-focused network and lead to outrage involving the cartoon community.

Closure
On July 5, 2017, it was announced that when Universal Kids arrives, NBC Family would merge with Sprout. Following the announcement, many of the network's programming would migrate to Universal Kids or the newly launched Toonopolis. NBC Family ended its North American run on September 6, 2017 with the final program on the block being an airing of Sitting Ducks.