Disney still owns ABC and it did not cancel ‘The View’

The claim that The Walt Disney Co. has sold the ABC network isn’t new, but it’s still unfounded. 

A recent Facebook post claimed that Disney is selling ABC to a new owner who’ll nix the network’s daytime talk show "The View."

The Nov. 28 post said, "Disney selling ABC for $20 billion: New owner plans to cancel ‘The View,’ calls It the ‘worst show ever.’"

We also found other Facebook posts making similar claims. 

(Screenshot from Facebook post.)

In a comment under the post, the Facebook user shared a link to a Nov. 28 blog post with the same headline as the Facebook post.

The Facebook posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Richard Horrmann, senior vice president of strategic communications at Disney Entertainment Television, which owns ABC, told PolitiFact via email that the claim is not true.

We did a Google search of the Facebook post’s headline and found the claim originated from a Sept. 17, 2023, satirical article with a similar headline: "Breaking: Disney Is Selling ABC For $20 Billion, New Owner Wants The View Cancelled."

The story appeared on SpaceXMania, a satirical website that says "every single article on our site is about as real as a unicorn sipping on a rainbow smoothie."

However, the SpaceXMania article is labeled as satire and the Facebook post is not.  

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The article claims that ABC’s acquisition "has been credited to billionaire entrepreneur Vincent Marquez," but PolitiFact found no credible news stories or public statements from Disney or ABC of potential buyers with that name. We also found no news reports that a supposed new owner wants to cancel "The View."

The 2023 satirical article was published during a time when Disney CEO Bob Iger signaled that Disney was open to selling some of its television assets. During that time, Byron Allen, founder and CEO of Allen Media Group, offered Disney $10 billion for ABC but received no public response from Disney. 

Reuters reported Sept. 15, 2023, that a "Disney spokesperson said while the company was ‘open to considering strategic options for its linear business’, it has not made a decision yet on selling ABC or any other property."

If someone had purchased ABC, several news outlets would have reported it. In 1995, Disney’s multibillion dollar deal to buy then-Capital Cities/ABC drew attention from both news organizations and the U.S. Justice Department over potential antitrust concerns.

This is not the first time we have fact-checked claims of ABC’s sale. PolitiFact rated False a similar claim that X owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired the entire cast of "The View" after acquiring ABC.

Since there’s no evidence the network hasn’t been sold, we rate this claim False.