In 1970, the FCC voted to pass the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules, a set of regulations aimed at preventing the major networks from monopolizing the broadcast landscape by barring them from owning any of the prime time programming that they broadcast. In 1972, the new rules resulted in the company's decision to split ABC Films into two separate companies: the existing Worldvision Enterprises, which would produce and distribute programming for U.S. syndication, and ABC Circle Films as a production unit. Worldvision was sold to a consortium of ABC executives for nearly $10 million.