Disney Shutters ABC Studio That Made Golden Girls And Lost

Closing the successful studio is a surprising move, given the success of ABC Signature shows like Grey’s Anatomy, which was wildly popular at its start, and is still on the air 21 years after it began. The show sparked two spinoffs, Private Practice, and Station 19, and is still generating revenue for Disney. Other long-running shows from ABC Signature like Criminal Minds: Evolution and Jimmy Kimmel Live at ABC will be transferred to Hulu for production.

Collapsing ABC Signature into 20th Century Television has been a slow-rolling project of Disney for a while now, with 20th Century making shows like 9-1-1 and Doctor Odesey for ABC. The drama and comedy development teams from ABC and Hulu are merging alongside the reorganization of ABC’s studios, blending the old network with their streaming parent, Hulu. The merger between Disney and ABC is coming full circle with this round of restructuring, and despite their success, ABC Signature has been merged out of existence.

In addition to producing series for ABC, Touchstone Television (now known as ABC Signature) also made series that ABC rejected, passing them on to other networks. These included the wildly successful franchise CSI in 2000, as well as the detective show Monk in 2002. ABC Signature had a knack for making hits, including Scrubs in 2001, which aired on CBS and has its own reboot rumors, and Ghost Whisperer in 2005, which also appeared on the CBS lineup.

ABC Signature made history by landing a first-of-its-kind deal with Netflix in 2014 to produce six Marvel series including Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, and Punisher. Daredevil is in the process of finding a new adventure as a Disney+ show, demonstrating the long-lasting impact that ABC Signature studio has had on Disney’s current projects. Moving from being a trailblazer in streaming series to being shuttered by Disney only a few years later is a head-scratcher for many fans.

Although Disney plans to lay off about 30 people as a result of the closure of ABC Signature, the current president of 20th Century Television, Karey Burke, will stay on in her current role, and Simran Sethi will be promoted to President of Scripted Programming for Hulu and ABC.

The layoffs look like they will largely be below the executive level, as much of the current leadership team will move on to other roles within the Disney company. With Disney cutting jobs to streamline production on their shows, most of the cuts appear to be in the creative departments.