InsideABC American Broadcasting Company's Rise to Power by STERLING QUINLAN $12.95 Inside ABC American Broadcasting Company's Rise to Power by STERLING QUINLAN The American Broadcasting Company's climb to leadership after more than 25 years of con- tinual third place network position is one of the most fascinating stories of corporate strug- gle in the history of American business enter- prise. The network's success has shaken the entire broadcasting industry, causing networks two and three to copy ABC's management style, and most significantly changed the view- ing habits of Americans. Despite ABC's broadcasting preeminence less is widely known about it than of the other two networks—of its creation by government bureaucracy, of its survival of takeover at- tempts by Howard Hughes and by ITT, of the dramatic personal stories of executive suite power struggles. Now Sterling "Red" Quinlan, former ABC executive and author of The Hun- dred Million Dollar Lunch, has written a de- finitive and candid history of the company that offers a uniquely revealing look into the top levels of the broadcast industry. Based on extensive research including inter- views with numerous past and present ABC employees, previously unpublished informa- (continued on back flap) HASTIN GS HO USE, PUBLIS HERS New York, New York 10016 ISBN 8038-6765-4 Printed in U.S.A. (continued from front flap) tion from company files and the author's own experiences, Inside ABC tells the complete story of the people and events that have shaped the highly individualistic style of the network, and made it the innovative force it is today. ABC's story is a significant one for anyone interested in the single most influential tool of mass communications—television. STERLING "RED" QUINLAN was Vice Presi- dent and General Manager of ABC's Chicago sta- tion for eleven of the seventeen years he was with the company. Mr. Quinlan has worked in almost every area of broadcasting from engineering to acting and has served as a consultant for private broadcasters and government broadcasting agen- cies. He is the author of three novels, lugger, Merger, and Muldoon Was Here, as well as an- other non-fiction book, The Hundred Million Dol- lar Lunch. HAS TIN GS H O US E, PU B LIS H E RS New York, New York 10016 "How the American Broadcasting Company got to where it is today, how it operates today, and why it operates as it does today, is a story that should be of interest to all who ask: where are we today in communications? Are we victims of what we watch, or are we responsible for what we get?" —From the Foreword Inside ABC American Broadcasting Company's Rise to Power by STERLING QUINLAN Illustrated with photographs HASTINGS HOUSE • PUBLISHERS New York NY 10016 f Second Printing, July 1979 Copyright C) 1979 by Sterling Quinlan All photographs, including jacket photograph, e 1979 by American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner or the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Quinlan, Sterling. Inside ABC. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. American Broadcasting Company—History. I. Title. HE8689.8.Q54 1979 384.54'06'573 79-14049 ISBN 0-8038-6765-4 Published simultaneously in Canada by Saunders of Toronto, Ltd., Markham, Ontario Printed in the United States of America Inside ABC Other Books by Sterling Quinlan MERGER JUGGER MULDOON WAS HERE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAR LUNCH Mary Contents Acknowledgment ix Before Fading to Black xi Part One BEGINNINGS 1 A Marriage of Convenience 3 2 Adjourn? We Never Adjourn! 29 3 Shootout at 66th Corral 48 4 High Jinks, Hardball, and Mavericks 67 Part Two CRISIS TIME 5 Minefields and ITI' 87 6 Autonomy Has Been Overemphasized—Harold Geneen 98 7 That Phantom Department Called Justice 103 8 Two Years Down the Drain 114 Part Three THE TURNING POINT 9 That Crazy Radio Idea 121 10 An Offer You Can't Refuse 133 vii viii Contents 11 Howard Hughes and His Takeover Machine 142 12 Mayhem In The Executive Suite 153 Part Four GETTING THE ACT TOGETHER 13 Welcome to the Seventies 169 14 "All Humans Have Taken Nature For Granted" 184 15 Who's On First? 195 16 Derailed 206 17 Miracle on Sixth Avenue 216 18 A Flash in the Pan? 224 Part Five ABC TODAY 19 Debits and Credits 237 20 News—ABC's Mega-Problem 245 21 Silverman Syndrome 256 22 A Company at the Crossroads 261 23 Dilemma of the Tube 265 Bibliography 277 Index 282 Photographs follow pages 78 and 202. Acknowledgments In addition to acknowledging thanks to all those patient souls who sat through long interviews (some of them several times), special thanks are due several persons whose cooperation made this book possible: Lester Weinrott, of Chicago, served as my own "personal ed- itor" on the manuscript as it was being written. His suggestions, counsel, and editorial assistance were of inestimable value. Without the help of Roann Levinsohn of ABC, New York, the book would not be as factually accurate as it is. She unstint- ingly checked dates, names, events, provided files and suggested new sources of information. "Rick" Giacalone, Director of Still Photography for ABC pro- vided the photographs used in the book. And Kitty Lynch, who operates ABC's News Research library, cheerfully turned over her facilities whenever they were needed. Without this ex- cellent source this author would still be running down clippings from here, there, and everywhere. Before Fading to Black I thought this book would be about a company . a com- pany I worked for, had disagreements with, ultimately left over the issue of autonomy; yet a company I have continued to admire out of some perverse sense of loyalty . no, that is not quite correct. I have admired ABC because of its people. Therefore what began as a book about a company, ends up being a book about people: —LEONARD GOLDENSON. The ultimate survivor. Tough and shrewd as they come, but with one soft spot—his dedication to United Cerebral Palsy. —ELTON RULE, who likes being President, but would not think twice about returning to his beloved California if the job ceased to be fun. —ED WARD NOBLE, a philanthropist, yet a tightwad. A pixie who enjoyed adding to his legend as an eccentric. —ROBERT KINTNER, a brilliant executive who became a pawn in the first power struggle. zi xli Before Fading to Black —OLIVER TREYZ, a maverick in the classic ABC mold, who, had he grown in dimension, could have had it all. —SIMON SIEGEL, whose inscrutable countenance was really a mask to conceal his sensitivity. —THEODORE SHAKER, whose cold brilliance was cancelled by an enormous blind spot in dealing with people. And many others: Fred Pierce, Fred Silverman, Richard O'Leary, Roone Arledge, James Duffy, Julie Barnathan, Tom Moore, Everett Erlick, John Campbell, Mike Mallardi, Jim Hagerty, Elmer Lower, Bill Sheehan—players on an unforgetta- ble stage who stand out in mind as vividly as characters in a Chekhov play. Regardless of what they think of me, or I think of them, I wish them well. As a company ABC has always been a haven for individ- ualists, many of whom could not have succeeded as well at any other network. Some of the most interesting mavericks ever to ride the kilocycle range found a happy home there. Fear of failing was never ABC's problem because, until recently, one knew that at ABC you could not go down any further; you were already third among three and had only one way to go and that was up. Innovation has been the mother of ABC's eventual success. Plus a shirt-sleeve kind of informality that has marked its essential style. As one industry watcher put it metaphorically: "CBS is like a beautiful girl from the finest finishing school, but in your heart you know she's a whore. "NBC, with its amorphous, hydra-headed committee style of management over the years is like looking into a series of mirrors and getting back a series of reflections, none of which is alike. "ABC is two guys bellying up to the Dorset bar at the end of a hard day. One says to the other, "Okay, what's the problem? I gotta catch the 7:10 train." They con the bartender into tossing for drinks. Four hours later the bartender is helping them solve the problem, and paying for most of the drinks." ABC's past is as fascinating as its present. It is a star-crossed tale, the roots of which go back, not only to the origins of radio, Before Fading to Black ell but to the beginnings of the motion picture industry. One root goes back to Paramount Pictures and Adolph Zukor and Barney Balaban. The other goes to the beginnings of radio in 1926; to RCA and General David Sarnoff; to RCA's attempted monopoly of broadcasting through the ownership of the then two NBC net- works, the "Red" and the "Blue." Ironically both companies were spawned by the American bureaucracy, by the Department of Justice in 1949 and the Fed- eral Communications Commission in 1943. ABC has been lucky in its darkest hours. International Tele- phone and Telegraph almost took over the company in the late sixties. Howard Hughes tried and failed in 1968. ABC's success in the past few years has shaken its industry to its foundation.