A Kind Word for TV Suits

Brandon Tartikoff loved the spotlight. The late NBC Entertainment president showed up on sitcoms, talk shows, even hosted “Saturday Night Live.” His press conferences could be equally theatrical, including one during which he literally swore on a stack of Bibles not to order more specials hosted by Geraldo Rivera--a policy that Fox News Channel, come to think of it, might be well advised to consider.

Some of Tartikoff’s successors harbor a similar fondness for seeing their names in print and faces on television but approach the process more warily--in part, one suspects, because of increased exposure in popular media of corporate “suits,” who keep spilling into the public eyes in a less-than-flattering (and mostly nearsighted) manner.

This bears mention as TV critics and reporters from around the country descend on Pasadena to preview new shows, part of a twice-annual ritual some network honchos have come to view with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved for a development meeting with a former “Seinfeld” co-star.

Then again, perhaps that’s because the criticism leveled at them has become more pointed and personal, beginning with a new Olympic sport that involved pummeling ABC Entertainment Television Group co-chairmen Stu Bloomberg and Lloyd Braun, at least figuratively, for crimes against television.

Bloomberg lost his job Monday after months of rumors--a move that couldn’t have come too soon, based on the press coverage. Writing in the trade paper Electronic Media, Tom Shales skewered the alliterative duo for having “compounded failure with failure and brought the network to new lows.” Not to be outdone, San Francisco Chronicle critic Tim Goodman dubbed them “the worst executives of the year,” citing their “lack of vision, unmerited smugness and the stubbornness necessary to drive ABC into the ground.”

While such shortcomings can be documented based on ratings and programming choices, Goodman went a step further, accusing the pair of being snotty to the press, of all people, by exhibiting “an effortless disdain for television critics.” Now, slapping Bloomberg and Braun around for putting on “Bob Patterson” is one thing, but for sneering at critics? If the adulation for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s terse press conferences is any indication, that’s the kind of offense that garners applause, not convictions.

Notably, examination of executive failings hasn’t stopped at the edge of TV columns, where it once did. After Braun suggested that “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” might not be around next fall, host Regis Philbin went on his morning talk show and paraphrased “The Godfather Part II” by noting that this was the business he had chosen, the implication being that dealing with horrible people comes with the territory.

Howard Stern also devoted time on his morning radio show to ridiculing the ABC executives, having previously trashed the programming acumen of CBS Television President Leslie Moonves, whose principal offense, apparently, was having the temerity to drop Stern’s Saturday night TV freak show.

In addition, Moonves became a comedic foil for CBS’ resident late-night ingrate David Letterman, who ran an ongoing gag about a visit to Cuba during which Moonves dined with Fidel Castro. Letterman’s best line: “This lunch must have been quite something. On the one hand, you have this ruthless dictator surrounded by sniveling yes men, and then on the other hand, of course, you have Fidel Castro.”

“Saturday Night Live” joined in biting the hands that feed it with a cartoon spoofing NBC’s ill-fated efforts to boost ratings for the since-departed sitcom “Emeril,” picturing executives Scott Sassa and Jeff Zucker burying the chef in rats.

What average viewers make of this inside-the-(Hollywood)-Beltway humor is anybody’s guess. For starters, one has to wonder what percentage of Stern’s listeners or Philbin’s viewers is supposed to care, though such griping does allow these millionaire hosts to bond with the audience, depicting themselves as downtrodden working-class heroes.

Directing broadsides at “the network” is hardly new. Johnny Carson tweaked NBC management before Letterman elevated thumbing one’s nose at authority to high art, alluding to “GE weasels” after General Electric acquired the network in the 1980s.

Nevertheless, heightened fascination with the entertainment industry’s inner workings has made such material more common and barbed, in part because there is simply more analysis of everything in our modern media age. In that context, network executives must accept that feeding a hungry press has become as much a part of the job as courting talent and choosing scripts, with lapses by ABC to be found on all three fronts.

The one real problem with most of the blather about network suits is that it tends to be somewhat myopic, seeing only the tip of the corporate iceberg that is the modern sprawling mega-media conglomerate, which can result in the bashing of the wrong weasels. Although Braun and Bloomberg made obvious targets, for example, they turn up on the corporate flowchart under three presidents (the ABC TV Network’s Alex Wallau, ABC Broadcast Group’s Steve Bornstein and Disney’s Robert Iger) even before one gets to hands-on Walt Disney Co. Chairman Michael Eisner, who has gone through senior management the way Wile E. Coyote goes through Acme products.

So while it’s easy to lampoon ABC’s B&B; boys for their lousy aim, they weren’t operating without permission (and, in some instances, they were under orders) from those higher up the food chain. That said, don’t hold your breath waiting for one of today’s corporate officers to publicly say, “Well, yes, that was a stupid idea, but my boss made me do it.”

It’s also only fair to point out that for all ABC’s boneheaded decisions and ham-fisted handling of press and talent relations (irking not only Philbin but also Barbara Walters and “NYPD Blue” producer Steven Bochco), ABC isn’t the only network with headaches.

NBC’s difficulty in coming up with new comedies persists, as “Emeril” and “Inside Schwartz” demonstrate; Fox has launched plenty of duds; and new CBS programs have mostly limped through the fall, with three canceled and high-profile vehicles for Ellen DeGeneres (“The Ellen Show”) and Richard Dreyfuss (“The Education of Max Bickford”) looking shaky.

Taking a respite from criticizing network executives to second-guess their critics is an unusually generous gesture for this column, but chalk it up to a weak moment of nostalgia. Because watching ABC officials impersonate ducks in a shooting gallery, it’s hard not to imagine that if Tartikoff were in the line of fire he’d somehow make a game of it, and Rumsfeld’s briefings wouldn’t be the only show in town drawing rave reviews.

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Brian Lowry can be reached via e-mail at brian.lowry@latimes.com.