Thoughts on Steve McPherson’s “resignation”

McPherson performing for advertisers at the upfronts.

Six years is a good run in an organization where Bob Iger is standing on your ceiling tile. Steve McPherson is gone, and contrary to the Times’ uncharitable assessment of his leadership at ABC Entertainment, it was a solid run. People always point out that ABC finished third behind CBS and Fox, and not to downgrade Fox too much but it must be noted that Fox programs 15 hours of prime time versus ABC’s 22 hours. Of course, as James Poniewozik notes in his more fair-minded McPherson piece, NBC gutted five hours of prime for half a season to make way for Jay Leno … and still finished right behind ABC in the demo.

McPherson was the man who brought us “Dancing with the Stars,” of course, and last season’s bolder-than-it-might-at-first-seem Wednesday comedy block. “Brothers & Sisters,” which he was very patient with, counts in his favor, as does out-of-the-box hit “Ugly Betty.” He said “yes” to the end of “Lost,” which was a smart move, and “yes” to a “Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff, which was a smart move, I guess, though it pains every nerve in my body to say so.

My point is, people have failed upward with less.

Perhaps McPherson is haunted, more than other executives, by the absence of superhits at a time when his rivals were minting superhits. “Dancing” was the Top 5 show that aged faster than its counterparts. The biggest franchise he was ever a part of was ”CSI,” which he greenlighted while running ABC Studios. His future predecessors at the network passed. He made his displeasure with that decision known — as well as his soon-to-be famous prickliness — at our very first TCA panel with him in 2004. (Ironically perhaps, if you believe the rumors, he was beamed in from Paris, where he was on honeymoon.)

To me, McPherson’s core flaw was that he kept snuffing out series before they had a chance to do much. I don’t think you get fired over what-if’s, but ABC had a long list of cancelled series that weren’t busted. “Better off Ted” is just the most recent example. Stand up as your show is called: “Pushing Daisies,” “Dirty Sexy Money,” “Eli Stone,” “Cavemen” (that one was for Itzkoff), “The Nine,” “Invasion” …

And then there was “Welcome to the Neighborhood,” the reality series McPherson infamously spiked over sensitivity about the treatment of the one gay couple on the series, as I reported in 2006. The sudden cancellation was bizarre by any measure — the gay couple wound up winning over not only the neighbors who were so bigoted toward them, but the prize at the end of the show. And McPherson knew this! So the idea of a happily married couple’s story being kept off ABC by a man who was dancing with …

Well, say no more.