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...entertainment side, the new economy kick is taking many forms. Actors and other on-air talent for such ABC-produced daytime shows as Good Morning America and the afternoon soaps will, according to a recent company edict, be limited to 5% salary increases, except in special cases. Producers are also feeling the pressure. Esther Shapiro, executive producer of Dynasty, decided against Arledge hiring a high-priced actor for her show this season when the task of get ting company approval proved too onerous. Before the takeover, ABC gave its top-rated sitcom Who's the Boss? $50,000 to shoot...
Signs are starting to appear. In sports ABC has long been the most aggressive and free-spending of the three networks. But the company's new managers declined to match CBS's bid of $173 million for rights to the next four seasons of N.B.A. games, and they are balking at the hefty fees being demanded for major league baseball and N.F.L. games. "We aren't conceding anything to the competition, but we are getting out of the red ink," says Dennis Swanson, the new president of ABC Sports. One casualty could be Monday Night Football, a once lucrative ABC...
...bottom line is also coming under closer scrutiny at ABC's news division. Most of the layoffs so far have been in lower-echelon production jobs. Says Washington Bureau Chief George Watson: "We have not cut into the teeth of the news-gathering and producing-operation." Yet staff morale has plummeted, and some insiders claim that personnel are being spread too thin. "It will reflect in the quality of the show," predicts a staffer at ABC's newsmagazine 20/20, which lost four positions in the cutbacks. "We are already burnt out." Says a New York City-based producer...
...ABC News President Roone Arledge, 54, who gave up his second hat as president of ABC Sports when Capital Cities took over, argues that the cutbacks are simply an effort to streamline operations, and were initiated by the news division itself as the result of a study begun in late 1984. "When I first came to ABC News," says Arledge, "by and large it was not a competitive force in network journalism. We had to get people's attention. Our needs are different now. We have more depth than the other two networks...
Still, new ABC Entertainment President Brandon Stoddard insists that the network will not cut corners in trying to reconstruct a winning prime-time schedule. "We've got to protect what goes on screen," says Stoddard, 49, who was named programming chief last November after running ABC's mini-series and theatrical-films operations, "because what goes on the screen will make us succeed or fail." The network has ordered 27 pilots for potential fall series, more than either of its two rivals. Lucille Ball will star in a new sitcom, and other prospective series include a sci-fi drama based...