ABC Losing Key Personnel

ABC, once the most stable of the major broadcast networks, is facing a brain drain.

Just six days remain before the Tuesday deadline for about 200 senior New York City employees to tell the network, which is owned by the Burbank-based Walt Disney Co., whether they will agree to move to the West Coast--or lose their jobs. The move, forcing a difficult choice for many, is part of a company plan to put most creative operations in a central locale to speed decision-making and encourage brainstorming.

Of the 240 New York positions that ABC is moving west, about 40 are in the high-turnover information systems area and will be handled by attrition. The remaining 200 employees, however, in areas from business and legal affairs to marketing and daytime programming, must decide whether to stay or go. While top brass, including ABC Group Chairman Robert Iger and network President Pat Fili-Krushel, are relocating, many others are opting to leave a company they have been at for decades rather than uproot themselves and their families.

ABC executives worry that the loss of a number of long-term, senior employees will hurt the network, even if the absolute numbers are small. “We’re going to lose a lot of talent,” said one ABC executive.

Already, the move is hurting morale, according to some. The New York move has “taken morale down to the basement there,” said one former West Coast ABC executive.

Allan Edelson, vice president and controller of ABC Inc., told his staff Thursday that he was leaving the company rather than go west.

Edelson, who joined previous ABC owner Capital Cities in 1980, said he is leaving “for personal reasons,” which he declined to elaborate, saying, “I’m just not going to relocate at this time.” He told his staff of about 15, “so that they can make their own proper decisions. Of course, when they heard I’m not going to go, they’ll probably all want to go now.”

Asked how he felt about leaving, Edelson said, “I’m quite fond of the company and I guess I’m not happy.”

Many Top Executives Left Jobs Earlier

Some high-level executives have already opted to leave. Alan Wurtzel, ABC’s senior vice president in charge of research, left in May for a job as president of research and media development at rival NBC.

Wurtzel, who had put in just shy of 21 years at ABC, said he “left because I had a really good job offer. At the same time, I never would have entertained other offers had the move not been on the table.”

There are numerous others who joined him. Valerie Schaer, who as a senior vice president of ABC Daytime oversaw the development of the popular Barbara Walters talk show, “The View,” left in May for Studios USA Domestic Television, where she is executive vice president of programming and development.

“It was a personal decision for me to stay in New York, where my family is based and my kids are in school,” she said. “I was very fortunate that a fantastic job came along at Studios USA.”

Schaer added that many of her ABC colleagues “share with me the whole notion of ‘Why mess up something that’s working?’ Daytime was one of the only divisions really doing great, and now the whole team is coming apart.”

Other senior managers are also finding new jobs elsewhere. Schaer, for example, will be joined at Studios USA next week by Rob Fitzpatrick, ABC’s vice president of business affairs, East Coast. Roger Goodspeed, an ABC lawyer for seven years, starts next month at Tribune Co.

One employee called the mandate to relocate or leave an arbitrary decision on the part of Disney Chairman Michael Eisner, a notorious micro-manager who wanted to centralize the hierarchy at ABC in a single venue where they would be readily accessible to him. Another said the goal is clearly tied to an ongoing cost-cutting directive by the network in response to declining ratings and rising programming costs.

This week, in a separate management action, a number of West

Coast employees are finding out whether they will be laid off as a result of the recent merger between ABC Entertainment and Disney’s own TV production operations. That merger is causing its own internal tensions; on Monday, ABC denied a report that ABC Entertainment President Jamie Tarses, who lost some power in the recent merger, was being forced out.

Patricia J. Matson, ABC’s senior vice president, communications, said the move was designed to “create instant and easy access” for creative executives now separated by 3,000 miles. “We recognize that it will cause some disruption in the short term, but it is absolutely in the best interest of the company for the long term,” she said.

As for layoffs, Matson said, “Everyone asked to move was offered the opportunity because we wanted them to move. Our first choice is to have them move. If that is not possible, we need to fill their positions,” and will, she said.

“This is a very personal decision involving families. . . . We understood in making this decision that some executives would choose not to go, and we regret that.”

Matson said her own plans are “a work in progress,” and other senior executives--who have been at ABC a long time--are clearly under a similar strain, as they wrestle with such problems as whether a working spouse will also be able to find a job in Los Angeles.

People inside the network said only about 15 employees have thus far indicated they will make the move, including Jonathan Barzilay, senior vice president of children’s programming, who has already relocated. Several executives said that, based on discussions they have had, they expect very few employees will opt to move to Los Angeles.

The 240 positions that are moving are a small percentage of ABC’s total New York employee base: Even after the move, about 5,000 employees will remain in New York, in divisions including news, sports and sales. ABC’s headquarters will remain in New York, which is also where NBC and CBS are based, and top executives such as Iger, Fili-Krushel and Steve Bornstein, president of ABC Inc., will maintain offices in both locales. ABC has a total of 12,000 employees around the world.

ABC is offering employees who elect not to move to Los Angeles a hefty financial incentive if they remain at the company until Sept. 30, 2000, to ensure a smooth transition.

New Office Underway at Disney’s Burbank Site

The September 2000 date is the approximate time the network expects it will be able to move employees into a new building going up on the Disney studio lot in Burbank. ABC employees in Los Angeles will also move into the building, which is currently under construction, evacuating the ABC Entertainment Center space in Century City that the network has occupied for nearly three decades.

Many ABC employees in Los Angeles also feel more than a little inconvenienced by the move to Burbank, having purchased homes in proximity to Century City, meaning they will face a much longer commute.

Even some of those upset about the move concede ABC has been quite generous in helping employees with the decision-making process, offering free trips to the West Coast for employees and spouses, as well as personal counselors to help with researching neighborhoods and locating schools for employees’ children. They also welcome the one-year transition period. “It’s not like we were being dumped on the street,” said one employee who elected not to make the move.

In addition to the network’s relocation, ABC’s local flagship station, KABC-TV, will also decamp next year for a new facility being built in Glendale. That move, from the station’s longtime home on Prospect Avenue in Los Angeles, was being planned prior to ABC’s acquisition by Disney.

The expense of all this shaking and moving will likely total millions of dollars, contingent on how many choose to move from New York to Burbank. KABC’s move alone is expected to cost more than $3 million. Matson declined to discuss any of the financial specifics.

Jensen filed her report from New York; Lowry from Los Angeles.