Abc Entertainment Chief Will Stay
“I am staying at ABC,” Jamie Tarses declared Wednesday. “I’m deeply committed to it, and I’m very excited.”
With that, the 33-year-old president of ABC Entertainment began the latest episode of the TV industry’s most discussed true-life soap opera in years, with a secondary story line about high-level corporate sexism to boot.
After weeks of unrelenting speculation that she’ll resign, Tarses Wednesday faced the press side by side with a 47-year-old male television executive whom ABC last month appointed to supervise her because, as he said, “This is a tough job for one person to do.”
Stuart Bloomberg and Tarses sat on a stage in identical red leather wing chairs and hung tough.
After saying she’s here to stay, Tarses initially declined to directly address what was seen by town gossips as the last straw: a devastating July 13 profile in The New York Times Magazine that quoted her predecessor, Ted Harbert, as saying “The town hates her, and I’m not sure even hits will fix that.”
Although Tarses inherited ABC’s third-place ratings woes from Harbert, the profile suggested a callow, indecisive executive, in over her head, who is at once the victim of rampant sexism and her own shortcomings.
She is the first female head of any of the major three networks’ programming divisions.
On Wednesday, Tarses - and separately, her boss Robert Iger, president of ABC Inc. - insisted that no exit negotiations had ever taken place. Asked if there was a time when she considered leaving, Tarses countered that there was no more than “really, a moment, as anybody would have when change is thrust upon them. I so quickly came to the conclusion that I want to do this.”
As if in proof, Tarses announced a decisive programming move that is sure to create more controversy for ABC: “Ellen,” the sitcom that last season made cultural history by featuring TV’s first openly homosexual lead character, will engage Ellen Morgan in a lesbian relationship next season.
Tarses’ announcement came just hours after a press conference in which three conservative groups joined the Southern Baptists’ boycott of Walt Disney Co., ABC’s parent, over Disney’s policies toward homosexuals both on the corporate level and in the network’s “Ellen” plot line.
“Internally we have put this thing behind us, and we are moving on to the future,” Tarses said when again asked about the magazine article. “It took the focus off of what I think is important and what’s important to all of us, and that is the programming.”
But Wednesday’s show of unity by Tarses and Bloomberg resembled one just six months ago by Tarses and Harbert, who orginally were to share the network’s top programming job. Although they faced TV critics here to the strains of “Happy Together,” Harbert soon exited his contract with the network.
Much has been made of the fact that, between Harbert and Bloomberg, ABC has not really allowed Tarses to run the network’s prime-time schedule alone, although NBC and Fox also essentially divide the job between two executives.
“I know it’s not a particularly unique thing,” she said of the job-sharing.
Tarses and Bloomberg on Wednesday didn’t offer any solution or timetable for solving the network’s overall ratings trouble. “Despite the shape we’re in, we’re in pretty good shape,” Bloomberg quipped, expressing high hopes for such new ABC shows as “Dharma & Greg,” a new sitcom starring Jenna Elfman, who is by Hollywood consensus the next big thing in TV.