ABC Workers May Face Post-Disney Job Cuts

Re: Capital Cities/ABC-TV-Disney merger. I have read and re-read the voluminous reports on this merger. In my opinion, you left out a most important question: What happens to the employees?

I was employed by ABC-TV for 43 years and witnessed firsthand the awful human toll when Capital Cities bought ABC-TV. Capital Cities was known as “lean and mean” and proved it by wiping out department after department, eliminating hundreds, possibly thousands, of jobs in the process (including mine). Many of the people who were dumped by Capital Cities had been recently hired victims of the General Electric-NBC acquisition. Talk about double jeopardy!

When Capital Cities took over, ABC was in full bloom just following the very successful ’84 Olympics. The “lot” at Prospect and Talmadge and the ABC portion of the “lot” at Sunset and Gower were running at full capacity. We were fully involved in the business of taping television programs. We were not only shooting ABC shows, but also NBC and Fox shows as well. Our crews were among the finest in the business. We were very busy.

Then it was over.

We really never knew what hit us. There was never an explanation. One by one or in bunches, the shows were taken away, then we were gone and it was over. I was gone by September of 1991.

In a few very short years, Capital Cities completely wiped out a wonderful world of marvelously creative people who had successfully labored long and hard and were now out of work. It happened at ABC. It happened at NBC. It happened at CBS, and believe it or not, it happened at Disney.

RALPH W. EMERSON III

Ventura