That ABC Family felt compelled to rebrand itself isn’t a shock. That it chose “Freeform” as its new identity is more puzzling.

It’s been a long time since ABC Family made any sort of effort to target an all ages, family-friendly audience. Signature hit Pretty Little Liars is typical of the network’s original programming. It’s trendy, aspirational and unafraid of sex. It also routinely attracts a healthy audience of young female viewers attractive to advertisers.

That’s been ABC Family’s focus for years. For a while, the network used the tag line “A different kind of family” to communicate that it wasn’t about squeaky clean programming you could watch with the tots. A rebranding was inevitable at some point.

But Freeform? It’s too vague, it could be a network about anything. Dancing. Skiing. Poetry. That ABC Family tested “Freeform” with focus groups and concluded it was an appealing new brand somehow seems unlikely.

There are a couple problems with adopting the “Freeform” name.

First, jettisoning its identity as an ABC network isn’t necessarily a good idea for ABC Family. It’s true that the ABC television group (like CBS and in opposition to the approach taken by NBC and Fox) really hasn’t chosen to align its cable outlets with the identity of its well-known broadcast network. For the most part, that hasn’t been a problem. Channels like ESPN and Lifetime were strong brands before becoming part of the ABC/Disney family and the various Disney-branded channels have been better off using their potent parent company’s brand.

ABC Family was a different case, though. That brand alignment made sense. The programming on ABC Family really does represent a more youthful, genre-oriented refinement of ABC’s primetime identity. It’s not hard to see a throughline from Pretty Little Liars to Scandal or How To Get Away With Murder. The Fosters or Separated At Birth feel like the sort of series that share the DNA of ABC’s slate of dramas. Jettisoning the “ABC” connection in favor of Freeform seems like the abandonment of a useful identity alignment .

Also bizarre is Freeform’s attempt to make the term “Becomers” happen. The network is pushing that term to describe its focus on the age 14-34 demographic (high school, college and the decade after college, roughly). Freeform claims to want to target viewers experiencing all kinds of “firsts.”

But why is “Becomers” necessary? A well-known term already exists to capture that demographic: Young Adult. ABC Family/Freeform creates programming that serves a similar audience as YA books. And like the most successful YA books, the best ABC Family programs have simultaneously been embraced by its target audience and a wider swath of viewers. YA is a well-known shorthand. It perfectly encapsulates what Freeform is doing.

The desire to create a new term suggests a certain contempt for the very audience Freeform intends to court. As though it can’t be taken seriously as a network if it acknowledges its pursuit of YA fans. This, even as the network heavily promotes airings of the Hunger Games and Twilight movies.

Audiences can get used to goofy rebrandings. When the Sci Fi networked morphed into “Syfy,” viewers mostly rolled their eyes and went along. At least that network could cite a logical reason for the shift (the term “Sci Fi” could not be trademarked). But why make that transition harder on your viewers? The audience that Freeform most wants to capture is also the most likely to bristle at something that’s trying too hard to pander to them.

ABC Family seems set on this change, though. Fans will get used to “Freeform” eventually, even if no one really knows what it means. It just can’t help but feel like a missed opportunity. And that ABC Family has stumbled even before the change has occurred.