New ABC Chief Faces Turnaround Challenge

Hollywood is full of know-it-alls. Walt Disney Co.’s Anne Sweeney isn’t among them.

“She’s comfortable not having all the answers,” said cable industry pioneer Geraldine Laybourne, who built the Nickelodeon channel and was Sweeney’s mentor. “I put her in one new situation after another, knowing she could figure it out.”

That trait is sure to be put to the test as Sweeney now tackles the biggest challenge of her career: trying to turn around ABC Television.

Disney on Tuesday vastly expanded the responsibilities of the 46-year-old executive, putting her in charge of the troubled broadcast network. The move makes her the highest-ranking woman at the Burbank-based company and arguably within the entertainment industry.

In addition to the Disney Channel, Soapnet, ABC Family Channel, TV animation and Disney’s international television operations -- areas she has previously overseen -- Sweeney will take charge of the division that has become Disney’s most vexing headache.

Yet many executives in both the cable and broadcast business are perplexed by Disney’s choice.

Although Sweeney has a solid track record in cable, she has almost no experience in broadcasting, a business that faces vast economic uncertainties as its viewership continues to erode and new technologies such as personal video recorders threaten to undermine its sole source of revenue: advertising.

The ABC operation is much bigger than anything Sweeney has led before. Its $3.7 billion in revenue last year was about three times higher than the total generated by the main cable channels Sweeney directed, according to Kagan World Media, a Carmel-based research firm.

What’s more, most of Sweeney’s programming experience has been confined to the narrow children’s niche.

“It’s different programming for kids and programming for one of the broadcast networks,” said Deana Myers, a Kagan World Media analyst.

Sweeney declined to comment for this story.

For their part, Disney’s top brass expressed full confidence in their pick. “We’ve given her more and more responsibility, and she’s always risen to the occasion,” said Disney President Robert Iger, who called Sweeney “the strongest person at the company” for the job. “We really believe in her.”

Iger also dismissed the critics, downplaying Sweeney’s lack of broadcast experience. “The lines between cable and broadcast are thoroughly blurred,” he said, adding that Sweeney will be backstopped at the network by her predecessor, Alex Wallau. He will report to Sweeney but continue to run advertising sales and station-affiliate relations.

Still, skeptics suggested that turning around ABC would be a tall order even for a seasoned broadcast veteran. Sweeney is the seventh head of ABC Television since Iger himself left the post a decade ago.

Today, ABC is the weakest of the major networks, ranking fourth in the prime-time ratings. Only one of its prime-time programs is currently in the top 20: “The Bachelor.”

That has put more pressure than ever on ABC management as it prepares for next month’s “upfront” advertising sweepstakes, when the broadcast networks compete to sell the majority of their commercials for the fall prime-time season.

Iger acknowledged that Disney pursued other candidates for the job. Some industry insiders say Disney’s failure to woo a heavyweight broadcasting executive reflects the increasing role that Iger has taken on at ABC over the last two years.

His direct hand in the network’s day-to-day affairs, critics say, has added a layer of oversight that has clouded the lines of accountability and that more successful rivals such as CBS and NBC don’t have.

“Iger is talking to talent, taking them to lunch,” said one source. “Disney won’t be able to bring someone in from the outside and really change things as long as Bob Iger has this role.”

Disney executives have disputed the idea that Iger is overly involved in creative matters.

Although always prepared, professional and well-spoken, Sweeney is not a Hollywood schmoozer. She is described by industry executives as often guarded and somewhat stiff.

Colleagues say Sweeney works well with Iger and Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner. A corporate survivor, she scaled the ranks at Disney even as droves of top executives, including Laybourne, her predecessor at the cable group, bailed out.

Iger said Sweeney was one of the few executives as comfortable with business affairs as she was with creative issues.

Indeed, Sweeney’s fans say her analytical bent could bring a new audience focus to ABC that it sorely needs. And they predict that her two most loyal lieutenants, Rich Ross and Eleo Hensleigh, will play big parts in helping her hatch her plans.

Some in the industry refer to the troika as the “Nick Clique” because they have worked together continuously for about 20 years, starting at Nickelodeon.

Sweeney joined Disney in 1996, shortly after the company’s $19-billion purchase of Capital Cities/ABC Inc., which transformed the Hollywood studio by adding not only a broadcast network but also the enormously valuable ESPN sports empire.

Shortly after the acquisition, Disney hired Laybourne away from Viacom Inc. to expand its non-sports cable operations and to overhaul the Disney Channel. The stodgy kids network was being badly beaten in the children’s television wars by Viacom’s Nickelodeon and Time Warner Inc.’s Cartoon Network.

Laybourne recruited Sweeney to revamp the Disney Channel, a delicate task because of the company’s obsession with safeguarding the image of anything bearing its name.

Sweeney, who had worked under Laybourne at Nickelodeon for 12 years, had left Viacom in 1993 to start up the FX channel at News Corp. for Rupert Murdoch. She considers him her other mentor.

At the Disney Channel, Sweeney homed in on girls 8 to 14 years old -- the age group known as “tweens.” The strategy helped establish the network as No. 1 in this market, with comedies such as “Lizzie McGuire” and “That’s So Raven.”

“It was a very bold move,” said Laybourne, who gives all the credit to Sweeney for zeroing in on the tweens. “She and her team looked at Nickelodeon and saw a hole and went after it.”

When Laybourne left Disney in 1998 to start the Oxygen network, Sweeney took on her responsibilities. That year, Sweeney launched Toon Disney as an animated companion to the Disney Channel. Two years later, she unveiled Soapnet, a 24-hour soap opera channel. Last fall, the troubled ABC Family Channel was added to her portfolio.

In some ways, Sweeney’s appointment at ABC is a homecoming. She started out as a 19-year-old page at the network in New York.