A Lot of Change, Quite Frankly

A few weeks after the last statuette is presented Sunday, Richard Frank concludes his third and final term as president of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences--the body that governs the Emmy Awards.

The former chairman of Walt Disney Television and current head of C3, a programming venture with cable giant Comcast Corp., Frank has led the academy six of the last 12 years, and few have affected the organization as profoundly in its 50-year history. His legacy ranges from seeking to expand the academy’s purview beyond merely handing out Emmys to fundamental changes in the awards themselves.

Not all those efforts have won him applause. Some say the decision to move the Emmys from the three major networks to then-upstart Fox in 1987 forfeited ratings the ceremony never recovered. The same year, the academy amended its rules to allow cable networks to participate, a decision that has prompted grumbling from broadcasters about an uneven playing field with pay channel Home Box Office, which now consistently dominates certain categories.

Along less controversial lines, Frank spearheaded the Superhighway Summit, which brought together a who’s who of executives from various fields to ponder TV’s future; and “Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue,” an animated special that the broadcast networks and several cable channels televised simultaneously, conveying its anti-drug abuse message to millions of children. A new version targeted to older kids and teens is in the planning stages.

Frank, 54, doesn’t apologize for revisions implemented during his tenure--some of which, he contends, symbolize the tumult that characterized the television business in those years.

Nothing proved more symbolic than the deal with Fox, which nearly tripled the annual fee paid to broadcast the Emmys, from $750,000 to more than $2 million annually.

At the time, Frank said, the academy had to increase its revenues, the vast majority of which come from the Emmys through what the networks pay and the sale of tickets.

The elder networks were stunned and outraged when Frank made the Fox deal. Ratings for the ceremony dropped substantially, not only because Fox was then much weaker than the better-established channels, but also because ABC, CBS and NBC programmed more aggressively against the awards.

“They all went after it with a vengeance,” Frank said. “They wanted to teach these little guys something.”

The networks also retaliated by cutting back on ticket orders as well as advertising in the academy’s Emmy magazine. Some executives resigned from the academy. Yet even with ratings down, Frank maintains, “the Emmy didn’t become any less prestigious in terms of people wanting it. It was just [that] less people saw it on the air.”

Frank contends that the process was necessary to ensure the academy’s survival, ultimately resulting in the telecast rotating among the four networks (the current deal lapses after next year) at a more substantial fee. The academy is now financially solvent, with $7 million in the bank.

“In retrospect, I not only think it was the right thing to do for the academy, but it was a key moment for the business,” Frank said. “It showed that a fledgling network could go out if they wanted to and aggressively go after [the rights to] something.”

Fox later proved that point in a more significant way by stealing pro football rights from CBS. “They were still a little boy, but they were getting out of their shorts and putting on long pants,” Frank said.

The cable controversy focuses on HBO, which has won the Emmy for best movie four consecutive years--in part, the networks contend, because the channel spends three or four times as much to produce a movie as do ABC, CBS and NBC. HBO garnered four of five movie nominations this year, with the remaining bid going to Showtime, another pay service.

One network executive cited the promotional slogan “It’s not TV. It’s HBO” as tacit recognition that HBO’s programs don’t operate under the same rules as the other networks. Another suggested that the academy has courted cable, seeking to boost membership at the networks’ expense.

According to Frank, increasing membership was never the issue, with academy members themselves having pushed for cable’s inclusion, failing to see the distinction between cable and broadcasting.

“Some of our members said, ‘Wait a minute. I’m a lighting director and I’m working on this movie for ABC and that one for HBO. Why doesn’t that qualify?’ So we let them in,” he said.

Frank acknowledges HBO “may have a leg up” in the voting but said that has more to do with how aggressively the service lobbies for Emmy consideration than high budgets, which by themselves don’t assure quality.

Though the academy’s charter prohibits taking political positions, Frank has sought to broaden the organization’s role in “defining issues and leading the industry.” The anti-drug special and Superhighway Summit represented examples of that--the former prompting rare kudos from Washington, the latter helping to frame discussions regarding the future of telecommunications.

“I think it was the moment that crystallized the industry, that something’s coming,” Frank said of the summit. “I know CEOs walked out of there and went back to their people and said, ‘Well, what are we doing in this area?’ I think it was a place where the academy really did break ground.”

Frank speaks with equal enthusiasm about the Archives of American Television, conducting interviews with TV industry pioneers--most now in their 70s and 80s--to record their memories for posterity. Roughly two dozen sessions have been recorded (including one with producer Sheldon Leonard just before his death), and the academy must raise more than $20 million to fund the project.

On a personal level, Frank practically chairs a mini-academy within his family: Brother Bill is executive vice president of United Television (which owns numerous TV stations, including KCOP-TV Channel 13); cousin Randy Reiss is also a former high-ranking Disney executive; and sons Paul and Darryl work as TV executives.

Such ties help explain Frank’s love for television, which in his eyes doesn’t get its proper due relative to film.

“It’s not as chic as working in the movie business, but it’s much harder,” he said. “The movie business is a piece of cake compared to the television business. They have a big budget and a lot of time to do it. If they’re unbelievably successful, three to four years later someone asks them to make a sequel.

“In television, if you do it right once, somebody says to you, ‘Can you make 22 of these a year for the next seven years?’ ”

In fact, the Emmys seem to have become a lineup of the usual suspects, with “Seinfeld” and “Law & Order” nominated six straight years in their respective categories. Far from boring, Frank calls such consistency “an unbelievable accomplishment.” Though some may quibble with the results, Frank also stressed that the process of determining winners through impartial judging panels reflects a desire to honor TV’s finest, not just its most popular.

“We miss a few,” he said, “but if you look at the Emmy winners over the years, I think the academy does a pretty good job of picking the best on television.”

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The TV Coverage

What: The 49th annual Emmy Awards

Where: Pasadena Civic Auditorium

When: The ceremonies begin at 5 p.m. Sunday but will air here on tape at 8 p.m.

Network: CBS (Channel 2)

Internet: www.emmycast.comhttps://wwww.latimes.com/emmy

Host: Bryant Gumbel

Arrivals: Cable’s E! Entertainment Television will have live coverage beginning at 3 p.m. KCBS-TV Channel 2 will have taped coverage at 6