ABC Reorganizes Its Broadcast Division

John C. Severino was demoted from the presidency of ABC Television on Tuesday as the company reorganized its broadcast division in what company officials described as a streamlining procedure prompted in part by the network’s ratings and financial problems this season.

Severino, who had been general manager of KABC-TV Channel 7, the ABC-owned television station in Los Angeles, before being appointed president of the network in 1981, was named senior vice president of the division that runs ABC’s five TV stations.

He will relocate from New York to Los Angeles.

Severino’s new boss will be Dennis Swanson, who used to work for him at KABC-TV as news director.

One of five executives promoted as part of the reorganization, Swanson on Tuesday was elevated from general manager of ABC’s Chicago TV station, WLS, to president of the TV stations division.

Severino, 48, said the company had offered him other positions, including that of president of the stations division, but he said that he had turned them down in favor of a job that would permit him to be based in Los Angeles.

“I’ve never really adapted to New York,” he said in a telephone interview. “My heart, and my family, has been in California.”

Severino, who jointed ABC in 1965 and took charge of KABC-TV in 1974, said his wife and two children continued to reside at the family’s Encino home during the nearly four years that he was based in New York, where he maintained an apartment. He had commuted between the two residences.

Named to replace him as president of ABC Television was Mark Mandala, who had been president of the TV stations division since January, 1983.

However, as part of the reorganization announced by Anthony Thomopoulos, president of the ABC Broadcast Group, Mandala’s responsibilities will be more restricted than were Severino’s.

Reporting to him will be the TV stations division and the ABC Television Network, which is responsible for advertising sales and affiliate relations.

ABC Entertainment, which produces and acquires programming for the TV network, will now report directly to Thomopoulos.

The broadcast operations and engineering division will report to Mark H. Cohen, formerly a vice president with the parent ABC Inc. who Tuesday was named executive vice president of the ABC Broadcast Group. Both divisions previously had reported to Severino.

Thomopoulos said the reorganization was intended to streamline the decision-making process and clarify responsibilities within the broadcast division.

He acknowledged that Tuesday’s shake-up was prompted “in part” by ABC-TV’s poor prime-time ratings performance this season--for the first time in 10 years, it is running third behind CBS and NBC--and by the division’s flat financial performance during the fourth quarter of 1984.

In other moves, ABC elevated James E. Duffy from president of the ABC Television Network to the newly created position of president of communications for the ABC Broadcast Group, responsible for public relations.

His job will be filled by George H. Newi, who had been vice president and general manager of the ABC Television Network.