Genre Drama Original language(s) English No. of episodes 5 | Country of origin United States No. of seasons 1 | |
Starring Pamela Bellwood
Richard Basehart
Alex Cord | ||
W.E.B. is an American prime time drama series that aired on NBC for five episodes from September 13 until October 5, 1978.
Contents
Cast
Overview
W.E.B. (the initials that comprised the title were never explained) showed the sharkish inner workings of the TV industry, centering on brash female programming executive Ellen Cunningham (Pamela Bellwood) at fictional network Trans-Atlantic Broadcasting. As head of Special Events Programming, Ellen was confronted with a variety of obstacles, most notably her male colleagues, such as ruthless programming head Jack Kiley (Alex Cord), drunken has-been news chief Gus Dunlap (Richard Basehart), and ratings-obsessed research chief Harvey Pearlstein (Lee Wilkof).
W.E.B. was originally scheduled to air on Wednesday nights at 10pm Eastern, and debuted on Wednesday, September 13, 1978. However, new NBC boss Fred Silverman's decision to scrap the proposed hour-long sitcom Coastocoast, originally announced for the Thursday 10pm slot, caused the network to move W.E.B. to Thursdays. It didn't help -- W.E.B. aired just four more episodes, the last on October 5, 1978. It was replaced with the police drama David Cassidy: Man Under Cover.
W.E.B. was at least partially inspired by the 1976 film Network, starring Faye Dunaway. Dunaway's role in the movie (ratings-mad TV exec Diana Christensen) was said to have been based on NBC's former daytime programming chief Lin Bolen—who produced W.E.B. However, Bolen has denied that the Network character was based on her.