I don't think any industry was ever as closely scrutinized and written about and constantly in the public eye as television.

But if you cover the World Series on the news or do a feature on an Ali boxing match then all of a sudden ears go up all over the place and people say what the hell are you doing. The reason for that is that we're doing something that people are really interested in.

I don't expect to win every battle but I think Fred Pierce has enough respect for me that I can go fight my battles and win my share.

The current wisdom now is that if the three networks are covering the news the same way the difference is the anchor people. I think that won't be true in the future.

I want everybody in the news business to think of ABC before they go any place else. If it costs us an extra few thousand dollars to do that, what does it mean?

In the past ABC has made half-hearted efforts or, worse, cosmetic efforts, to do something about news and I wasn't certain about what their real aim was - nor am I now.

In fact, I had a series of offers which would have brought me a lot of money to make films and package TV programs. There were people who said to me, we'll put a million dollars in your bank account tomorrow, which is a hard thing to turn down.