African-American ABC executive who fired Roseanne hired her last year
ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey's job just got a bit tougher.
Dungey, the first African-American to head programming at a major broadcast network, canceled her network's top-rated show of the 2017-18 TV season on Tuesday, "Roseanne," after racist tweets by the show's star, Roseanne Barr.
Dungey couldn't have taken an action of that magnitude in a vacuum. She reports to Disney-ABC TV Group chief Ben Sherwood, who in turn answers to Disney CEO Robert Iger, who publicly backed the decision, tweeting, "There was only one thing to do here, and that was the right thing."
Still, filling the sudden hole in ABC's primetime lineup is a task that will largely fall to Dungey, whose network finished the season with a bit of momentum thanks to the ratings success of "Roseanne" and to a lesser degree "American Idol" and the new drama "The Good Doctor." The move also creates uncertainty at a moment when the networks are negotiating ad deals for the coming season, which officially begins in September.
Dungey, 49, was named president of ABC Entertainment in February 2016. Prior to that, she oversaw drama development for the network, where she was involved in launching many of ABC's long-running series, including "Scandal," "How to Get Away With Murder" and "Marvel's Agents of SHIELD."
Dungey has been closely aligned with "Scandal" creator Shonda Rhimes -- she first worked with the producer during the early days of "Grey's Anatomy" -- but ABC was shaken when Rhimes entered into an exclusive agreement with Netflix for all future series. Despite that arrangement, Rhimes continues to produce several existing shows for ABC.
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