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How David Westin Ruined ABC News by Emily Miller
One thing that really troubles me about ABC is that they (and Disney in general) seem to cable and satellite multiple system operators (such as ESPN, Disney Channel and ABC Family) as "affiliates". So in the process, they have the current head of ESPN also head ABC Sports (because Disney would now a days prefer to have more high profile sports events on ESPN, they've managed to alienate ABC's affiliates and not promote new programming more thoroughly), the current head of ABC Family head their entertainment division, and fill their Saturday morning schedule with reruns of Disney Channel sitcoms. Furthermore, Anne Sweeney, who's the current President of Disney-ABC Television Group directly comes from a cable background. As for David Westin, who recently announced his resignation as head of ABC News, well here's a great article regarding how completely mismanaged his 13 year tenure there has been:In 2004, after suffering a drop in upfront ad sales thanks to an overdependence on game show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," ABC greenlit "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," which fueled its resurgence. This fall, ABC's hoping for a similar jolt. The network has grown reliant on a group of aging stalwarts and that has ad buyers concerned.
How bad has it gotten? Even ratings-challenged NBC, no longer so far behind ABC in terms of performance, has been taking potshots. For the 2009-2010 prime-time broadcast season, ABC saw its average viewership come in third, behind CBS and Fox, according to Nielsen. More crucial, perhaps, is its viewership in the demographic coveted by advertisers -- people between the ages of 18 and 49. ABC nabbed an average of 2.692 million viewers, Nielsen said, while NBC, boosted by its broadcasts of the Winter Olympics, captured an average of 2.686 million viewers between 18 and 49 -- not too far apart.
Couple that with ABC's recent spate of executive turnover -- ABC news chief David Westin has indicated he will leave by the end of 2010, and the network has parted ways with both Stephen McPherson, the man who devised its new fall schedule, and Michael Benson, one of the executives who was supposed to market its new shows to the masses -- and it will be a year of rebuilding.
"Their tentpole shows are indeed aging," said Don Seaman, VP-director of communications analysis at Havas media-buying firm MPG. He suggests the "younger" shows that have potential will need strong sampling to gain a foothold among younger viewers. "Otherwise you might be looking at a longer reclamation project for the Alphabet network," he said.
Producing better-watched programming is crucial to ABC's success. ABC has seen its upfront sales decline in recent years, according to recent estimates from Fitch Ratings. The Disney net once marched in lockstep with the arguably more stable CBS, securing about $2.5 billion in ad commitments for the 2008-2009 TV season. This year, ABC was only able to notch around $2.2 billion, according to Fitch, after falling to $2.1 billion in 2009. Meantime, lesser-ranked NBC and better-rated Fox increased their smaller totals year over year.
This comes after ABC, like all the other broadcast networks, saw overall ad revenue drop in recession-plagued 2009 by 2.1%, to about $5.06 billion from $5.17 billion, according to Kantar Media. (ABC's decline was less than that experienced by any other broadcast rival that year.)
How David Westin Ruined ABC News by Emily Miller