ABC News taps Ben Sherwood as president
At a time when network news faces unprecedented competition for its audience, ABC News has tapped a new president who brings not only a traditional broadcast pedigree but also an eclectic background as an author and Internet entrepreneur. The network is betting that those skills can help it adjust to the Digital Age.
Newly named president Ben Sherwood will succeed David Westin, who announced in September that he would step down. He assumes the helm of ABC News at a key moment: The division has been ravaged by staff cuts, must grapple with how to respond to opinionated and provocative cable rivals, and faces scores of anonymous competitors breaking news on Twitter.
“What you’ve got, if you are Ben Sherwood, is a world in flux, a network economy that is not improving and a series of old problems that need new solutions,” said Richard C. Wald, a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and former president of NBC News and a former ABC News executive.
Sherwood said he is up to the task.
“My challenge is to raise the competitive metabolism even higher than it already is, to mobilize ideas and resources, to get more people to pay attention to what ABC News produces on all of its platforms and ultimately to find new ways — unknown ways, ways that have not even been imagined yet — to perform the incredibly vital public service that ABC News provides every day,” Sherwood said.
Sherwood spent many years at ABC News before leaving the network in 2006 to concentrate on writing books. He is the author of two novels, including 2004’s “The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud,” which was adapted into a movie, “Charlie St. Cloud,” that opened last summer. His nonfiction bestseller, 2009’s “The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life,” inspired him to launch an online support network, TheSurvivorsClub.org. He’s also a blogger for the Huffington Post.
“I’ve spent the past few years learning an incredible amount about digital media, and I’m going to bring that learning to ABC News,” he says.
One of Sherwood’s tasks will be trying to figure out how to marry ABC News’ television operation to the Internet and make the news relevant to younger viewers, who have drifted away from television news. Like other broadcast news divisions, ABC News has had to endure severe cuts over the last several years as it struggles to adjust to the Digital Age. In the past, it has flirted with partnerships with CNN and Bloomberg Media. Determining whether such an approach is the best bet to ensure a solid future for the unit may be one of Sherwood’s first decisions.
Though Sherwood declined to comment on a possible merger, ABC News spokesman Jeffery Schneider did not deny that the network has a vested interest in Bloomberg. “We’ve been partners with them for a long time, as we’re partners with the BBC and NHK,” he said. “We’re always looking for ways to deepen those partnerships.”
ABC had made it clear after Westin announced his departure that it was not necessarily going to promote someone from within the unit to take the job. While Sherwood isn’t a traditional network news guy, he knows his way around the newsroom. While at ABC News, he delivered the two most successful seasons of “Good Morning America” in history and guided coverage of the Southeast Asian tsunami, Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 presidential election. Since he left the show, its ratings have dipped to 1.5 million from 1.7 million.
Sherwood inherits a news unit that has been plagued by recent personnel transitions and is currently No. 2 behind NBC in the mornings and evenings. Since Diane Sawyer replaced Charles Gibson at “World News,” the NBC “Nightly News” advantage over ABC has increased by 14%.
Bernard Gershon, former general manager of the ABC News Digital Media Group, said that network news operations are dealing with a shrinking, aging audience — and one that is increasingly fragmented. A growing number of rivals — from News Corp. Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch’s proposed national news application, “The Daily” to Internet-only publications like the Huffington Post, to established media outlets Twittering and blogging — are siphoning away potential viewers.
“When I wake up in the morning, the first news source I check is Twitter,” said Gershon.
While network newscasts still attract larger audiences than rivals, Gershon said ABC and the others will need to figure out how to make money as they meet viewers on emerging platforms such as the iPad tablet or via Twitter feeds.
“It’s not like they are dead today,” Gershon said. “If you’re a network news operation, you can see the locomotive coming at you at 65 mph. But you’re not sure if you’re going to get hit next week or in the next five years.”
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