Quick Answer: The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network that serves as the flagship property of the Disney Entertainment division of the Walt Disney Company. The youngest of the "Big Three" American television networks, the network is sometimes referred to as the Alphabet Network, as its initialism also represents the first three letters of the English alphabet in order. ABC launched as a radio network in 1943, as the successor to the NBC Blue Network, which had been purchased by Edward J. Noble. It extended its operations to television in 1948, following in the footsteps of established broadcast networks CBS and NBC, as well as the lesser-known DuMont. In the mid-1950s, ABC merged with United Paramount Theatres, a chain of movie theaters that formerly operated as a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures.