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    Home » Dungey Succeeds Lee As ABC Programming Head, Setting Network TV Precedent

    Dungey Succeeds Lee As ABC Programming Head, Setting Network TV Precedent

    By SHOOTThursday, February 18, 2016Updated:Tuesday, May 14, 2024No Comments2856 Views
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    This undated photo provided by ABC shows, President, ABC Entertainment Group, Channing Dungey in Burbank, Calif. (Craig Sjodin/ABC via AP)

    By Lynn Elber, Television Writer

    LOS ANGELES (AP) --

    The president of the ABC Entertainment Group is departing amid low ratings, to be replaced by the first African-American to head a broadcast TV network.

    Paul Lee's successor is Channing Dungey, who has been ABC's executive vice president for drama development, movies and miniseries, the Walt Disney Co.-owned network said Wednesday. Dungey shepherded ABC hits including "Scandal," ''How to Get Away with Murder" and "Quantico."

    The changeover comes a year after Ben Sherwood became president of the Disney-ABC TV Group and nearly six years after Lee started as entertainment chief.

    Lee decided to step down, ABC said.

    "Channing is a gifted leader and a proven magnet for top creative talent, with an impressive record" of helping to create compelling and popular series, Sherwood said in a statement.

    Dungey is both the first black network programming chief and a rare female executive. Change has come faster for women than minorities in the TV executive ranks, with Jennifer Salke serving as NBC's entertainment president and, at Fox Television Group, Dana Walden sharing chair and CEO duties with Gary Newman.

    Dungey's appointment as ABC Entertainment president comes at a time of increased scrutiny of Hollywood's lack of diversity on- and off-camera, with attention focused recently on the Oscars' all-white slate of nominees for this month's awards.

    Dungey said in a statement that she is "thrilled and humbled" by the opportunity. She will not oversee ABC Studios, as Lee did. Instead, its executive vice president, Patrick Moran, will report to Sherwood.
    Lee, in a statement issued by ABC, said he was proud of the team he built at the network and wished Dungey and Moran well. He did not say why he was leaving or what his next job would be.

    The British-born Lee can claim credit for bringing notable diversity to ABC with shows including "black-ish" and "Fresh Off the Boat." The network also became home to megaproducer Shonda Rhimes' series that feature multi-ethnic casts and black stars. They include Viola Davis in "How to Get Away with Murder" and Kerry Washington in "Scandal."

    "It is a mission statement to reflect America," Lee told a 2014 meeting of the Television Critics Association. "That's not so much diversity as authenticity when you reflect America."

    Lee's schedule earned strong ratings in the 2014-15 season and still has impressive performers, especially Rhimes' Thursday night block of series.

    But the network's numbers currently are in the doldrums, averaging 6.6 million viewers in prime time season-to-date. The network ranks third behind NBC and CBS, the leader with 11.7 million viewers. Last season, ABC averaged 8 million viewers.

    Dungey, a graduate of UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television, has been with ABC since 2004, starting with ABC Studios. Previously, she worked at production companies and as a production executive at Warner Bros., handling films including "Bridges of Madison County" and "The Matrix."

    AP Television Writer Frazier Moore in New York contributed to this report.

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    Category:News
    Tags:ABCChanning DungeyPaul Lee



    Review: “Lee Cronin’s The Mummy”

    Friday, April 17, 2026
    This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Natalie Grace in a scene from "Lee Cronin's The Mummy." (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

    The tagline for "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" is "Some things are meant to stay buried." That also applies to the misguided "Lee Cronin's The Mummy," which should definitely stay deep underground for eternity. Let's face it, Mummy has always been the lamest of the classic, old-school monsters, a grunting, slow-moving and poorly bandaged zombie. Dracula has a bite, after all, and Frankenstein's monster has superhuman strength. What's Mummy going to do? Lumber us to death? Cronin evidently believes there's still life in this old Egyptian cursed dude, despite being portrayed as the dim-witted straight guy in old Abbott and Costello movies or appearing as high priest Imhotep in the Brendan Fraser franchise. So Cronin has resurrected The Mummy but grafted it onto the body of a demon possession movie. His Mummy is actually not a man at all, but a teenage girl who is controlled by an ancient demon and grunts a lot. "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" — the title alone is a flex, like he gets his name on this thing like Guillermo del Toro, John Carpenter or Tyler Perry? — is overly long, constantly ping-pongs between Cairo and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and after a sedate first half, plows into a gross-out bloodfest at the end that doesn't match the rest of the film. Cronin, behind the surprise 2023 horror hit "Evil Dead Rise," is weirdly obsessed by toes and teeth, and while he gets kudos for having an Arabic-speaking main actor (a superb May Calamawy) and portraying real-feeling Middle Eastern characters, there's a feeling that no one wanted to edit his weirder impulses, like some light, inter-family cannibalism. It starts with the abduction of a Cairo-based family's young daughter, who resurfaces eight years later in a 3,000-year-old sarcophagus, catatonic and showing... Read More

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