American Broadcasting Company television. The fifth-oldest major broadcasting network in the world and the youngest of the Big Three television networks, ABC is often nicknamed 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 on October 12, 1943, serving 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. In the mid-1950s, ABC merged with United Paramount Theatres, a chain of movie
Bookstop (company) Bookstop (company) Bookstop Inc. was a Texas-based chain of bookstores that was at one time the fourth-largest bookselling chain in the United States. In 1989 Barnes & Noble acquired the company, at which point it became a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble. The chain also did business under the name Bookstar due to trademark conflicts in other states. Laura J. Miller, author of "Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption", wrote that the chain "combined discounting with very wide selection, careful attention to display, and a reliance on sophisticated information systems in order to build a chain that would