Abc Executives

Changes at ABC: Two ABC executives--sports chief Dennis Swanson and Philip R. Beuth, vice president of the ABC Network Group--will jointly take over the areas of daytime, children's and late-night programming formerly overseen by Michael Brockman. The executive left the job last week citing "philosophical differences" with ABC management.

A top producer at ABC News has decided to join the Pepsi generation. Jon Banner, who has spent more than 25 years at ABC News and played a key role in the network's coverage of the world,  is getting out of journalism to become a senior vice president of global strategy and planning at the food and soft drink giant PepisCo Inc.  During his tenure at ABC News, Banner won 15 Emmys. He was the longtime executive producer of ABC's "World News Tonight" and more recently oversaw the Sunday news program "This Week" and played a big part in the network's overall political coverage.

Just like the young high school girls who wanted the attention of the Lakewood football players, ABC executives under pressure gave into the demands of three members of the Spur Posse when they sought the men for an appearance on the "Home Show" (April 6). Evidently, ABC thought it had an understanding of no fees. At the last minute after ABC had made a public commitment to feature them, the young men revealed their skills of coercion, manipulation, and perhaps, even charm. Knowing they had forced the executives in a corner, they refused to appear on the show unless the executives said "yes."

The CW network has tapped a former senior ABC executive as its new president. Mark Pedowitz, who spent five years as president of ABC Studios before becoming an independent producer, is joining CW — a joint venture between Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. and CBS Corp. — just weeks before it announces a new fall schedule to advertisers. Dawn Ostroff, who has served as president of entertainment for the broadcast network since it launched in 2006, is resigning next month to relocate from Los Angeles to New York.

Harry Usher was at his best during the times leading up to the 1984 Olympics. For those of us who worked at the LAOOC, Harry was a firm but fair leader. His untimely death has left us all shaken. One of my most vivid memories of the LAOOC occurred about a month before the Games, when Harry asked me and several others to join him at the Coliseum for a demonstration by ABC. They were hoping to use a new "sky-camera" during the Games. The ABC executives introduced the engineer who had designed the gadget, and he explained how it was a computer-controlled and programmed to go anywhere in the space over the Coliseum's playing field.

ABC will challenge CBS' powerhouse "60 Minutes" with a Sunday-night newsmagazine of its own by the start of the fall season, network executives said Friday. "We are definitely going ahead with the show," Joanna Bistany, a vice president at ABC News, said in an interview. "Hopefully, we will be on the air before the fall--we'd like to try the program out in the summer. But we will be on by the fall."

ABC has picked up the sitcom "Surviving Suburbia" with Bob Saget for a high-profile 9:30 p.m. Monday time slot after "Dancing With the Stars" this spring. If the title of the show -- which has Saget playing a cynical suburban dad -- sounds familiar, that's because it was supposed to premiere this year on the CW, part of a Sunday lineup farmed out to the mini-studio Media Rights Capital. But in November, CW abruptly yanked the entire MRC schedule, with a network executive declaring that it was "simply not working."

National advertisers are refusing to buy commercial time on an ABC radio network special hosted by Barbara Walters that will deal with the topic of abortion, ABC executives said today. But ABC executives said they intend to run the program even if no paying sponsors turn up before the 54-minute special airs Wednesday. "It's got to be the topic," said Lou Severine, senior vice president of sales for the ABC radio network. "They are scared to death of the abortion topic. . . . They just don't want to be involved with any controversy."

President Reagan's State of the Union address will be televised live at 6 p.m. PST today on NBC, CBS, ABC and Cable News Network, officials said Tuesday. But the response by Democrats will be carried by only NBC and CBS tonight. ABC decided to follow the President's message in most time zones with "Dynasty," its most popular show, and to delay the Democrats' 30-minute "alternative view" until Thursday night.

Although a pilot program for "Seven Days" was made last year, the proposed ABC News series, created last year by former "Entertainment Tonight" managing editor Jim Bellows, has been shelved, a spokeswoman for the network said Wednesday. "It's on the back burner now," the spokeswoman said of "Seven Days." The pilot was anchored by Kathleen Sullivan, co-anchor of "ABC News This Morning," the early-morning program that airs before "Good Morning America."

Robert Trachinger, a longtime ABC television executive and professor at UCLA's school of theater, film and television, has died. He was 86. Trachinger died Sept. 19 of heart failure at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, his family said. He retired from ABC in 1985 as a vice president after a wide-ranging career with the network and its affiliate in Los Angeles, KABC. His titles included vice president and general manager of broadcast operations and engineering on the West Coast.

Paul Lee, the executive who revived Walt Disney Co.'s moribund ABC Family channel with shows that appealed to the sensibilities of the millennial generation, was elevated Friday to president of ABC Entertainment Group. Lee immediately takes over for Steve McPherson, who abruptly stepped down this week. The 50-year-old, London-born Lee, a former BBC television executive, will oversee creative and business operations for the broadcast network as well as ABC Studios, the company's in-house TV production unit.

In the opening of ABC's new drama "FlashForward," the world's population blacks out at the same moment and has a vision of events on a day in April 2010. ABC executives, particularly Entertainment Group President Steve McPherson, may also be having visions of what the future will look like seven months from now. By then it will be clear to them whether the network's risky move to premiere twice as many new shows as its rivals this fall has paid off or not. The Walt Disney Co.-owned network, which last season ranked third in prime time, is facing its toughest programming challenge in years.

ABC has picked up the sitcom "Surviving Suburbia" with Bob Saget for a high-profile 9:30 p.m. Monday time slot after "Dancing With the Stars" this spring. If the title of the show -- which has Saget playing a cynical suburban dad -- sounds familiar, that's because it was supposed to premiere this year on the CW, part of a Sunday lineup farmed out to the mini-studio Media Rights Capital. But in November, CW abruptly yanked the entire MRC schedule, with a network executive declaring that it was "simply not working."

Among the nearly two dozen television DVDs slated for nationwide release on Sept. 11 is the second season of "Bones," the third season of "Grey's Anatomy" and the miniseries "The Starter Wife" that aired earlier this year. Not on the list on that day or any other in the near future is last year's highly controversial "The Path to 9/11."

Andrea Wong, one of the architects of the ABC network's ratings renaissance, today is expected to be named chief executive of Lifetime Entertainment Services with marching orders to return the beleaguered cable channel to its former glory. Wong will replace Betty Cohen, said an executive close to the Lifetime board who asked not to be named because the announcement was not made official Wednesday.

Breaking with the networks' standard practice of promoting from within the programming ranks, Capital Cities/ABC Inc. on Thursday named Robert Iger from its business affairs side as president of the entertainment division. The 38-year-old former executive vice president of the ABC Television Network Group immediately declared, "I do not come in with a program strategy."

ABC executives can breathe a (momentary) sigh of relief. The network took a huge gamble by moving the medical soap "Grey's Anatomy" from Sundays to Thursdays this fall. But with "Grey's" the week's most-watched show (25.4 million average viewers in the live-plus-seven-day ratings), the network wound up No. 1 in the crucial 18- to 49-year-old demographic for the first week of the 2006-07 season. ABC averaged a 4.

As network executives officially launch their fall schedules today, it looks like they've stumbled onto something: Friday nights. Fifteen of the 18 programs on the networks' Friday schedules are new, or shows that have been moved to a Friday evening time slot. The only veterans returning to the same time slot on the same network are ABC's "20/20," NBC's "Dateline" and WB's "Reba."