WB Network Names New Entertainment Chief

After five years of stable management, WB Television Network faces its first shake-up, with Susanne Daniels named Monday to replace Garth Ancier as the president of entertainment at the network. Daniels, 33, will assume her new post immediately, even though Ancier will remain at WB until his contract expires in May.

Ancier is expected to join NBC as president of entertainment, replacing Scott Sassa, who will succeed Don Ohlmeyer as president of NBC West Coast. Sassa and Ancier worked together under Barry Diller in the early days of the Fox network.

Rather than free Ancier to join NBC immediately, WB is requiring him to fulfill the rest of his contract--meaning he will miss the key development season for next fall. Sassa has no experience in developing programs for network television, and NBC’s lead in the ratings has quickly been slipping this season without its blockbuster “Seinfeld.”

Ancier was the founding entertainment chief for WB, but most television executives expect business as usual at the network Time Warner controls in a partnership with TribuneBroadcasting.

One television agent said no program gets on the network today without the approval of Daniels, a highly regarded development executive who is known for her skills in working with writers and who brought hit shows such as “Dawson’s Creek” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” to WB.

The nearly 5-year-old network is the only one with significant gains in viewership this season.

Daniels’ previous contract stipulated that she become president of entertainment next June. Had Ancier renewed his contract with WB, he would have been elevated to president of the network, with WB founder Jamie Kellner serving as chairman.

Under her new five-year contract, Daniels will also oversee Kids WB. Daniels, a mother of two who is married to Greg Daniels, creator of Fox’s “King of the Hill,” says WB’s Saturday morning programming is sometimes more geared to adults than children. She said she will work to make the schedule “more kid-friendly.”

The former Fox and ABC development executive said her goal for WB is to expand the schedule from five to seven nights and to create a hit comedy.

She said her team’s inexperience in drama worked to their benefit, in part because of their ignorance of convention. “Rules can be so constricting,” Daniels said. “People said, ‘Don’t develop Buffy, because you can’t take a movie and make a successful series.’ ”

She said that even though she had more experience with comedies, she is forcing her group to try new approaches, “not what’s familiar and safe.”

Daniels said she learned how to deal with writers from Ancier, as well as from her husband.

“The greatest thing I’ve learned from Garth is that you can shape a project, but in the end you have to trust the people you are getting in business with and get over this executive-itis,” she said.