(OT) ABC Fam halves staff, website moves to go.com
Matt Williamz
LATimes is reporting that the other shoe has dropped and ABC Family is axing
half of its staff. This is expected, as Disney begins integrating the channel
into the ABC Cable Networks Group, with experienced cable personnell. I'll be
posting that article below. One has to wonder, though... was Andy part of the
cuts?
Also, I think we should assume that the web staff got cut as well. :) An
INCREDIBLY barebones ABC Family website has opened at abcfamily.go.com; the old
abcfamily.com address now redirects to the new go.com site. Barebones doesn't
even begin to describe the site; the new site only has three pages, the main
page, the "about us" page, and a CAble in the Classroom popup. There are no
individual show pages, no mention of the daytime schedule, and even the
schedule is a link to zap2it.com! I'd think that this is a temp page until the
redesign takes place, but still... it's very, VERY barebones.
Now, the article:
Disney to Trim Half of Staff at ABC Family
By RICHARD VERRIER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Walt Disney Co. plans to cut about half the staff at its recently acquired ABC
Family channel, according to sources at the company.
About 300 employees at the cable channel's headquarters in Westwood will be
laid off in the next several weeks, said an executive at ABC Family who asked
not to be identified.
The layoffs will cut across all divisions, but will fall more heavily on
administrative and support staff than creative personnel, the source said.
Employees will be summoned to meetings early next week at which they will be
notified of their status. Some will be transferred to other jobs at Disney. The
action, which was expected, comes nearly three months after Disney acquired the
channel, formerly Fox Family, in a $5.2-billion deal with News Corp. and Saban
Entertainment. To expand the audience for its shows and generate new
advertising revenue for its struggling ABC television network, Disney is
reshaping ABC Family as a secondary outlet for a range of programs.
And with much of the programming at ABC Family now handled out of the broadcast
television network, Disney doesn't need as many people to run and market the
cable channel. Disney, which operates several cable channels, including the
Disney Channel, SoapNet and ESPN, already has experienced cable personnel, the
executive said.
ABC is not alone in cutting back. Other broadcasters and cable companies have
been retrenching. NBC, AOL Time Warner Inc. and MTV all have laid off hundreds
of workers in the last year, owing mainly to the weak advertising market that
has deteriorated further since the events of Sept. 11.
The ABC executive said the soft ad market was not the reason for the Family
Channel cuts.
Still, the job reductions are just the latest at Disney, which cut 4,000 jobs
last year amid a weakening economy and aggressive efforts to shore up its
bottom line. Disney posted a net loss of $158 million for fiscal 2001,
reflecting a drop in attendance at the company's theme parks, charges related
to the closure of the Go.com Internet portal and a slowdown in advertising at
the ABC network.
Analysts weren't surprised by the scale of the cutback at ABC Family.
"I don't think there's anybody who's not had some sort of staff reduction,''
said Katherine Styponias, with Prudential Securities in New York.
ABC has been hit especially hard by the falloff in advertising revenue because
its ratings already were in decline. In the last two years, ABC has fallen from
No. 1 to No. 4 in the key 18-to-49 demographic sought by advertisers.
Acknowledging the need to recharge programming, Disney on Monday named a new
president of entertainment for ABC and announced the resignation of veteran
executive Stu Bloomberg.
Disney said ABC Family will be an important testing ground for new programs
that could find their way onto the sister broadcast network and give it a
platform to cross-promote movies, such as "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's
Stone," for which Disney recently acquired the broadcast rights in a record
deal with Warner Bros.
The channel, which gives Disney an additional 81 million subscribers in the
U.S., features a mix of kids and family programs, including ABC comedies from
the 1990s. ABC Family also continues to broadcast televangelist Pat Robertson's
talk show, "The 700 Club.''
But Disney's efforts to revamp ABC Family have been complicated by a nasty
contract dispute with EchoStar Communications Corp., the nation's
second-largest satellite provider.
Disney is suing EchoStar to keep the satellite provider from dropping ABC
Family.
EchoStar has argued that under an agreement it signed in 1995, it has the right
to drop ABC Family if there is a change in its control. The company says it
needs to make room for additional channels it's required to carry under federal
regulations. EchoStar also has complained about what it says are fee hikes
Disney has levied for its channels and weak ratings for ABC Family. Though it
remains a low-ranked channel, ABC Family saw an 18% jump in household viewers
in January, Disney said.
On Wednesday, a Disney executive accused EchoStar of making false statements
and denied that the company has sought any rate increases for ABC Family beyond
those agreed to by EchoStar in 1995. An EchoStar spokeswoman declined to
comment.
A federal judge will review Disney's request for an injunction Sept. 17.
Matt Williams...@aol.com
Ace87171
Ace87171
Yellow Lightning
"Ace87171" <ace8...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020110213557...@mb-mu.aol.com...
> This is Andy...and I'm still standing :) (using my other account) :)
That's good. We could use someone behind the scenes.
--
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