ABC to Fire Chief, in bid to Increase Ratings

The Walt Disney Company, who owns ABC Television, plans to fire its chief programmer Lloyd Braun, chairman of ABC Entertainment Television Group, and in lieu of him, fill in with an up and coming star among the hierarchy at Disney. They believe Anne Sweeney (president of the broadcast network's Cable Networks Group and Disney Channel Worldwide) will serve to increase viewership, according to a Los Angeles Times report today.Alex Wallau is also expected to step down as ABC's president, although he will still remain with the network. This is quite an upset in both arenas, but especially for Wallau, as he has been with the company since 1976. According to the LA Times, neither Disney nor ABC executives, including Sweeney, chose to comment on these latest upsets.

ABC has been trying to revive its current lull for quite sometime, with reality television hype, and a new line-up of shows including mobster gore epic "Line of Fire," Stephen King's "Kingdom Hospital" (which has lost appeal, in spite of talking ant eaters and be-fanged ghosts) and "The D.A." (one of my new favs). The network has only two shows in the top 30 currently, and that is including Monday Night Football and the "The Bachelor." ABC has remained decidedly behind in the ratings department. They came in most recently at fourth place in the ratings list.

But what most believe is sparking the change in management, is the recent criticism of Michael Eisner, a Disney Chief Executive, who received an overwhelming 43 percent no-confidence vote from shareholders last month. In October, Sweeney was asked to manage ABC's family cable channel. She has been praised publicly by Wall Street analysts as well, who claim she is much more conducive to drawing pre-teenage girls and toddlers into the demographic arena. Anne Sweeney appears to have the track record ABC is looking for. She's established and "fresh."

Shareholders criticized Braun and Eisner for being slow to fix the "problems" with the network, and for being anything but proactive. Well, as usual, they called in a woman for back up. Can't wait to see what's in store for ABC next!