Editing TGIF (TV programming block) (section)

====Change/end of first run (1996–2000)====
The Walt Disney Company purchased ABC corporate parent [[Capital Cities Communications]] in September 1995, and, after finalizing the sale the following year, began reshaping ABC to its preferences beginning in 1996, refocusing its attention towards programming toward teenagers and adult audiences.<ref name=LAT4-20/> After a couple years with nearly the exact same lineup, ABC finally changed up its Friday night lineup to jump start the fading TGIF by holding ''Step by Step'' and ''Hangin' with Mr. Cooper'' on the back burner (until the Spring of 1997) and launching two new shows that were bookended by popular veterans ''Family Matters'' and ''Boy Meets World''.

The first was ''Sabrina the Teenage Witch'', a fantasy sitcom based on the [[Archie Comics|Archie]] comic book character starring [[Melissa Joan Hart]] (who had made her name earlier in the 1990s as the star of [[Nickelodeon]]'s ''[[Clarissa Explains It All]]'') in the [[Sabrina Spellman|titular role]].{{NoteTag|Hart had played the Sabrina character—given the adaptational surname "Sawyer", later changed to "Spellman" for the series—earlier that year in a [[Showtime (TV network)|Showtime]] [[Sabrina the Teenage Witch (film)|made-for-TV movie]] that acted as the series' unofficial pilot.}} Becoming a breakout hit out of the gate, it was ABC's most successful Friday comedy launch since ''Boy Meets World'' debuted three years earlier (in September 1993), and helped breathe new life into the lineup. With its mix of supernatural and conventional teen sitcom elements, ''Sabrina'' was a buzzy show among ABC's target audience for the night and fit nicely with the lineup's other teen-centered shows. The second new show was ''[[Clueless (TV series)|Clueless]]'', which was based on series creator [[Amy Heckerling]]'s hit 1995 teen comedy film of the same name, and had many of the film's cast members reprise their roles (albeit with [[Rachel Blanchard]] and [[Michael Lerner (actor)|Michael Lerner]] replacing [[Alicia Silverstone]] and [[Dan Hedaya]], respectively, as lead character Cher Horowitz and her widowed attorney father, Mel). ''Clueless'' was the more anticipated show among ABC's two new Friday comedies, though, despite pulling reasonable ratings, it was not as successful as ''Sabrina'' was. ABC pulled ''Clueless'' from the lineup in February 1997, and cancelled it at the end of the 1996–97 season. (It would subsequently be picked up by [[UPN]], where the sitcom would run for two more seasons.) ''Step by Step'' took over ''Clueless''{{'}}s timeslot when it returned for its 24-episode sixth season in March; the abbreviated fifth (and final) season of ''Hangin' with Mr. Cooper'', however, was pushed to June and burned off all 13 episodes primarily on Saturday nights (although that August, three episodes from the season's back half would air in ''Cooper''{{'}}s former Friday slot).

As a result of the overhaul to cater to a new audience, longtime ''TGIF'' staples ''Family Matters'' and ''Step by Step'' – both of which had been experiencing steadily declining ratings since the 1994-95 season – were cancelled. Warner Bros. Television quickly cut a deal to move the two shows to CBS for the [[1997-98 United States network television schedule|1997–98 season]], where they would serve as the linchpins for a new, competing family-oriented block managed with Warner Bros. and Miller-Boyett airing on the same night, the ''[[CBS Block Party]]''.{{NoteTag|Because ABC chose to delay its sixth season to accommodate ''Sabrina'' and ''Clueless'' on the ''TGIF'' lineup, the seventh (and final) season of ''Step by Step'' premiered on CBS only five weeks after the show’s sixth season finale—and final original ABC broadcast—aired on August 15.}}<ref name=goober>{{cite news|title=He's A Goober But CBS Has A Lot Riding On Urkel TV|url=https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1997-07-18-9707170555-story.html|first=Hal|last=Boedeker|newspaper=[[Orlando Sentinel]]|date=July 18, 1997|access-date=June 4, 2022|archive-date=June 22, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210622211530/https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1997-07-18-9707170555-story.html|url-status=live}}</ref> That block failed to boost CBS's fortunes on Friday nights, with both the lineup and all four of its shows (including the Bronson Pinchot vehicle ''[[Meego (TV series)|Meego]]''—which joined the two fellow Miller-Boyett series that were central to the new lineup—and ''[[The Gregory Hines Show]]'') only lasting one season.

The success of ''Sabrina the Teenage Witch'' prompted ABC to surround it and ''Boy Meets World'' with two other supernatural-themed shows as part of "the new TGIF" for 1997–98. The fantasy sitcoms joining the lineup that fall were ''[[You Wish (TV series)|You Wish]]'', a series from ''Boy Meets World'' creator/showrunner Michael Jacobs about a genie ([[John Ales]]) living with a family; and ''[[Teen Angel (1997 TV series)|Teen Angel]]'', centering on a teenager ([[Mike Damus]]) who died during an eating challenge that returns to Earth as his best friend's ([[Corbin Allred]]) guardian angel. Neither show was as endearing with audiences as the ''TGIF'' shows that earned long runs in previous years, and were also disliked by critics, even with the return of [[Maureen McCormick]] (known for her earlier role as [[List of The Brady Bunch characters#Marcia Brady|Marcia Brady]] on ''[[The Brady Bunch]]'') and the addition of established sitcom star [[Jerry Van Dyke]] (coming off his role as Luther Van Dam in the long-running ABC comedy ''[[Coach (TV series)|Coach]]'' and who, unusually, had supporting roles on both new shows) to the network's Friday night lineup.

The ''TGIF'' lineup began to experience sagging ratings throughout 1997–98 in part due to the audience fracture caused by its new competition from CBS{{'}}s ''Block Party'', which was enough to hurt ABC's ratings dominance on Fridays even though the rival block itself was a failure. Even ''Boy Meets World'' and ''Sabrina the Teenage Witch'' (despite both shows reaching their peak viewership averages during that season) started to experience declining ratings due to strong competition from ''[[Dateline NBC]]'' and three successful midseason replacements to the ill-fated ''CBS Block Party'': ''[[Unsolved Mysteries]]'' (which moved to CBS after a nine-season run on NBC), the [[Bill Cosby]]-hosted ''[[Kids Say the Darndest Things]]'' and the revival of ''[[Candid Camera]]''; with the more formidable competition, after eight years, ABC ended the season dethroned as the top-rated network on Friday nights ironically by CBS, which recovered from the ''Block Party''{{'}}s initial failure by the Spring of 1998, with the help of the three aforementioned midseason replacements as well as the [[Don Johnson]] police procedural ''[[Nash Bridges]]''.

Although ''You Wish'' and ''Teen Angel'' were designed in concept to mesh with ''Sabrina'' on the lineup (while conversely making ''Boy Meets World''{{'}}s usually "down-to-earth" concept seem out of place with the other three shows), neither of the two freshman comedies lasted a full season: ''You Wish'' was pulled in November after seven episodes (six additional episodes produced before its removal from the network's schedule were burned off from May to July 1998), while ''Teen Angel'' lasted 17 episodes before ending in February (both shows returned to the lineup on May 22 for a summer run, which ended in September). With no additional family-oriented sitcoms ordered for that season to replace the cancelled shows, save for a two-week run of the more adult-skewing family comedy ''[[Hiller and Diller]]'', ABC simply aired repeats of ''Sabrina the Teenage Witch'' and ''Boy Meets World'' for the rest of that season (at 8:00 and 9:30&nbsp;p.m. respectively, leading into new episodes of those series) until May 15, 1998 (season finale of TGIF’s 1997-98 season). As part of a network-wide rebranding toward a simplified graphics package, ABC retired the traditional ''TGIF'' logo and phased out the theme song.

After a moribund 1997–98 season, the [[1998–99 United States network television schedule|1998–99 season]] saw two promising shows in ''[[Two of a Kind (American TV series)|Two of a Kind]]'', a starring vehicle for [[Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen]] centering on a widowed college professor ([[Christopher Sieber]]) who hires one of his students ([[Sally Wheeler]]) to help take care of his twin daughters, and ''[[Brother's Keeper (1998 TV series)|Brother's Keeper]]'', an "[[The Odd Couple (1970 TV series)|Odd Couple]]"-style sitcom centering on a widowed college history professor ([[William Ragsdale]]) who agrees to let his irresponsible pro-football player brother ([[Sean O'Bryan]]) move in with him and his son ([[Justin Cooper (actor)|Justin Cooper]]), per a stipulation in his brother's contract with the [[San Francisco 49ers]]. ABC thought that the Olsen twins' return to ABC would help boost the block's foundering ratings, and decided to have ''Two of a Kind'' lead off the night in the 8:00&nbsp;p.m. slot. Both shows had respectable ratings throughout the season, although viewership for ''Two of a Kind'' gradually declined as the season progressed after a promising start; however, it and ''Brother's Keeper'' were both cancelled in May 1999 (repeats of both shows ran until July 16; ''The Hughleys'' & ''Home Improvement'' filled their spots from July 23 to September 17), marking the second season in a row that the block failed to generate a hit among its freshman shows. The cancellation of ''Two of a Kind''—which was the last series to be produced by the studio until the 2016 debut of ''Full House'' reboot ''[[Fuller House (TV series)|Fuller House]]''—also marked the end of ABC's 27-year relationship with Miller-Boyett Productions and its various iterations,{{NoteTag|''Two of a Kind'' and ''Meego'' were the only series produced under the Miller-Boyett-Warren partnership formed the previous year that saw longtime collaborator Michael Warren join the company as co-partner.}} and therefore any involvement with the block they had left (Miller-Boyett and Warner Bros. had their stakes terminated by then). With the block continuing to struggle to generate new hits and ratings for ''Boy Meets World'' and ''Sabrina the Teenage Witch'' continuing to fall, it seemed that the end of the original TGIF was in sight.

What would become the final season (1999–2000) of ''TGIF''{{'}}s original run saw additional changes: the hosting segments and skits were officially dropped, and the "TGIF" name was only used for the promos and bumpers; adult-skewing family sitcom ''[[The Hughleys]]'' (starring comedian [[D.L. Hughley]] as the Black owner of a successful Los Angeles vending machine business, who moves his family to a predominantly white middle-class neighborhood) was moved from Tuesdays to Fridays for its second season, while the new comedy ''[[Odd Man Out (American TV series)|Odd Man Out]]'' (a vehicle for then-rising teen actor [[Erik Von Detten]], about a teenage boy navigating life with his widowed mother, aunt and three sisters) joined the lineup after being heavily promoted in the summer of 1999 as a last-ditch effort to save the dying block. In March 2000, ABC launched the reality music competition series ''[[Making the Band]]'' (acting as a mid-season replacement for ''Odd Man Out'') in the midst of the late 1990s–early 2000s [[boy band]] craze. The show featured boy-band impresario and eventual convict [[Lou Pearlman]] putting together a new boy band that became [[O-Town]], which would go on to have a couple of successful songs. All four sitcoms that ABC aired on Fridays that season experienced varied fates: ''Sabrina the Teenage Witch'' and ''The Hughleys'' were both cancelled by ABC and revived by The WB and UPN, respectively (''Sabrina'' ended its seven-year run in 2003, while ''The Hughleys'' was cancelled after four seasons in 2002); ''Boy Meets World'' voluntarily ended its run after seven successful seasons; and ''Odd Man Out'' was cancelled outright by January 2000 after 13 episodes.

The final night of new programming aired on May 5, 2000: that evening featured the hour-long series finale of ''Boy Meets World'', followed by what was billed as "ABC's series finale" of ''Sabrina the Teenage Witch'' (as it had just been picked up by The WB for a fifth season), which aired as a two-episode block consisting of the series’ fourth season finale—the final original episode of ''Sabrina'' to air on ABC—and a repeat episode. Repeats of both series continued throughout the summer, with repeats of ''Sabrina'' continuing to air until August 25, and repeats of ''Boy Meets World'' continuing until September 8, 2000 (when ABC aired the first and only original network rerun of that show's series finale) along with the finale of ''Making the Band'' (which was later revived on [[MTV]] in 2002, following its cancellation by ABC). ABC retired the "TGIF" brand shortly thereafter.<ref>{{cite news|title=On Friday nights, the networks try anything|first=Alex|last=Strachan|newspaper=[[The Vancouver Sun]]|date=September 8, 2001<!--|access-date=January 19, 2014 -->}}</ref>