A New Tempest in the TV Set

After a roller-coaster ride with last year’s twice-postponed Emmy Awards, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences--which presents the television industry’s top honor--still finds itself in tumult, this time over stewardship of the nonprofit organization.

The academy has long been plagued by internal disputes, with a history of infighting that has prompted some leading television officials to stay away and one senior executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, to discuss the group as “a hornet’s nest.”

Many within the organization hoped the situation would ease after writer-producer Bryce Zabel was elected chairman in August, replacing Meryl Marshall-Daniels, who served consecutive two-year terms.

Instead, several members of the group’s board of governors are upset over last month’s decision not to renew the contract of academy president Jim Chabin without consulting the board.

As a result, a showdown over how the academy is run could come during a board meeting Wednesday evening, the first since the vote was conducted.

The latest academy brouhaha comes at a sensitive time, with negotiations to begin next year on a new television contract governing the Emmy Awards, which provides most of the academy’s annual revenue.

Moreover, Chabin had been pursuing closer ties with the New York-based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which organizes the news, sports and daytime Emmys, after its bitter split from the West Coast academy in the 1970s. It’s unclear how his departure will effect those discussions.

Zabel declined to discuss the reasoning behind the board’s decision but said it would be addressed Wednesday night. Chabin also declined to comment.

Mindful of the academy’s history, some officers are saying the group needs to address issues pertaining to Chabin’s renewal before it can move forward.

“I have great concern that the board was not consulted on a decision as important as this,” said Dan Birman, a documentary producer who sits on the executive committee as secretary.

Through an accident of timing, the Emmys spent extended time in the spotlight during the fall. Postponed twice by the events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath, the Emmys became a litmus test for what some anticipated would be an altered public tolerance of the fluffy and inconsequential, balancing that view against the insistence that anything less than full-throated pursuit of such pastimes would be a victory for terrorism.

Savoring that the Emmys went off largely without a hitch and to mostly positive reviews, many within the academy were hoping for a period of relative tranquillity.

That changed with the vote regarding Chabin by the executive committee, which consists in part of half a dozen appointed industry leaders and six elected officers, among them Zabel, who assumed that role during the fall and is said to have orchestrated the push to let Chabin go. The board itself is made up of more than 50 industry professionals representing each of 27 branches, from actors and directors to editing and sound.

Although the bylaws state that officers serve “at the pleasure of the board,” there is precedent for the executive committee’s handling the decision-making process in renewing contracts. Despite the fact Chabin still has supporters within the board, the dissidents stress that their principal concern is protocol, especially given that Zabel ran for the chairman’s job by promising to empower governors in the organization’s management. At the least, they want a fuller explanation of the decision and assurances that the board has a clearly defined role in the future.

“If the board of governors is not making the final decision on how the academy is run, then what are we doing there?” asked Steve Binder, one of the directors branch’s two representatives.

Zabel said the executive committee “followed the rules” in making its decision and that the board has the right to revise the academy’s bylaws if it chooses. “The board has the ultimate power over the television academy ... and I do support the board’s power,” he said.

Marshall-Daniels, also an independent producer, amassed various achievements during her tenure as chairman--among them altering voting procedure to allow more people to participate in selecting Emmy winners--but was also criticized for contributing to factionalism within the group, straining relations with the paid staff and at times withholding information from the board. Most candidates she backed during last summer’s election (including UCLA professor Jeff Cole, who ran against Zabel) were defeated.

During the last 25 years, only two high-level executives, the late Columbia Pictures President John Mitchell and former Disney Studios chief Richard Frank, have headed the academy, and the reluctance of leading figures to become involved in recent years may have limited the group’s clout and prestige. Some academy veterans say that Frank, for example, was better able to deal with the networks than those who might harbor an incentive to parlay involvement with the group into greater status within the industry.

Insiders say the media attention showered on the Emmys may have fueled tension between Zabel and Chabin over who should publicly represent the academy in interviews with such news outlets as NBC’s “Today.” Zabel disputed that but would not discuss his relationship with Chabin.

However, Nancy Tokos, a member of the executive committee, maintains that Zabel had plenty of support in deciding to make a change and that it was “not in the best interests of the television academy” to retain Chabin, who also clashed with Zabel’s predecessor, Marshall-Daniels.

Zabel did acknowledge, however, the academy might need to reexamine its structure. “It is clear that the academy needs to grapple with the general issue of what they want the chairman to do and what they want the president to do,” he said. “Ultimately, the board may wish to address that issue, but that’s their call.”

A writer-producer who has worked on such shows as “Dark Skies” and “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,” Zabel received considerable media exposure because of the Emmy postponements, and he details those interviews on his Web site, which includes contact information for speaking engagements and personal appearances.

Zabel stressed that he doesn’t view such appearances as a source of income and, if anything, may wind up sacrificing work because of the time he is devoting to the academy.

“If the question is, do I hope to gain from having this job, the truth is it goes the other way in many respects,” he said.