Yet many believe the problem isn’t with ABC’s prime-time lineup but with Disney’s. The network’s woes are ammunition for angry shareholders who want to unseat Disney CEO Michael Eisner. Cable giant Comcast Corp., which in February made a bid for Disney, is telling Wall Street it can do a better job of running ABC. Eisner is wounded–stripped of his chairmanship last month–and Disney is promising shareholders an earnings jump of more than 40 percent this year. So the pressure is on Iger to take a cue from “Extreme Makeover,” a rare ABC hit, and perform radical surgery on the network, which some analysts say lost Disney nearly $100 million in the most recent quarter alone.
The latest shake-up comes right before a crucial board meeting this week in Anaheim, Calif., where, between rides on the new Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, directors will debate a possible timetable for sending Eisner to his own twilight zone. Is Iger worried about losing his job? “I really don’t want to speculate on that,” he tells NEWSWEEK.
Ask anyone in TV land, and they’ll tell you what ABC’s problem is: no one really knows who’s in charge. CBS has Les Moonves. NBC has Jeff Zucker. ABC is run by committee. Before Disney came along, the network operated like the others and enjoyed hits like “Roseanne” and “Home Improvement.” But now it is headed by a team reporting to Iger–who, like Eisner, is an ABC alum with strong opinions. Execs have to contend with Eisner’s beloved “synergy”: on “8 Simple Rules,” a character shows up in a Mickey T shirt. Disney also put “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” on four nights a week, milking it dry before the theme-park attraction even opened.
For ABC to succeed, Iger and Eisner will have to let their new programming chief, Stephen McPherson, trust his gut. Iger, 53, bristles at the suggestion that independence wasn’t afforded Lloyd Braun and Susan Lyne, the prime-time team that got the boot last week. “They were not prevented from putting shows on, or forced to put shows on,” Iger insists. Maybe, but Disney management certainly let its feelings be known. At a screening last year of the pilot for “The Big House,” Eisner piped up, “Why are we making this?” according to two people briefed on the screening. Lyne and Braun shared Eisner’s concerns that the show might seem racially insensitive, but they convinced him and Iger that they could fix the sitcom. Iger and Eisner appeared to give their blessing, and Braun and Lyne ordered up episodes. But shortly before the show was to have been unveiled for advertisers last May, the Disney brass got cold feet, so the sitcom was dropped, people involved with the show say. Such meddling led to repeated clashes between Braun and Iger. “Lloyd resented Bob’s insistence on having everything run by him, but not publicly acknowledging that,” says an ABC insider. (A Disney spokeswoman disputes the account and says Eisner wasn’t responsible for the delay of “The Big House,’’ which finally aired in April.)
Given that ABC’s new cast is made up of Disney insiders, few believe the power dynamic will change, even though Iger insists McPherson is in charge of prime time. As chief of Disney’s TV-production arm, Touchstone Television, the 39-year-old earned a rep for his ability to spot winners like “CSI,” which he sold to CBS after Iger and Eisner rejected it. McPherson’s new boss, Anne Sweeney, president of Disney-ABC Television, is known for giving her lieutenants breathing room. Sweeney, 46, won Eisner and Iger’s respect by reviving the Disney Channel, targeting the tweens her alma mater Nickelodeon had overlooked. Yet Sweeney will be sharing oversight of ABC and the rest of Disney’s media networks with George Bodenheimer, chief of ESPN–who, NEWSWEEK has learned, was Iger’s first choice. (Bodenheimer apparently said he didn’t want to relocate from the East Coast.) Such power sharing is a reason Disney failed in wooing an outsider to the post. NEWSWEEK has learned that the company approached up to eight Hollywood executives, including Jamie Kellner, who helped launch Fox and the WB.
The best hope for ABC is a hit reality show. ABC jumped on the bandwagon late with “The Bachelor,” then pulled back last year after flops like the cheesy “Are You Hot?” The network is hoping that “The Benefactor,” in which Internet billionaire Mark Cuban will give away $1 million to a lucky contestant, catches fire. Also in the works: a knockoff of a British series called “Wife Swap,” with two women exchanging husbands, kids and homes for 10 days.
The biggest cliffhanger in Burbank, though, is the Eisner-Iger marriage. Only a year ago, Eisner was hinting that Iger was his heir, but that now seems unlikely, absent an ABC turnaround. Iger has survived because he’s done a good job with other divisions, like cable TV and consumer products. He also gets a lot of credit from investors for tolerating life in Michael’s shadow. But the network is what counts. “The performance of ABC is clearly one of the factors that will be taken into [account in] any evaluation of me, and should be,” Iger says. Stay tuned for this week’s episode, when Eisner and Iger get report cards from the board.
