ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 20, 1996 TAG: 9612200063
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ANAHEIM, CALIF.
SOURCE: JENNIFER BOWLES ASSOCIATED PRESS
The person behind television's only channel dedicated solely to women is, well, a man.
But wait. This man relies on a mostly female staff and loves flipping through women's magazines.
``I read Cosmo, I read Marie Claire, I read Good Housekeeping a lot,'' declares Doug McCormick, president and chief executive officer of cable television's Lifetime.
The magazines, McCormick says, not only give him a heads up on women's trends, but also lend him programming ideas.
``At the front they'll have helpful hints and advice and in the back you've got horoscopes and things like that,'' he says. ``Marie Claire I think is wonderfully written to have a sense of intimacy and there's a lot to be learned from that. You know, it's a good friend.''
Sounds a little strange coming from this imposing, fast-talking New Yorker, but there's sincerity behind his words. His ``outstanding'' support of women's causes prompted the New York Women's Agenda, a coalition of 73 women's organizations, last year to award McCormick its top honor - ``Honorable MENtion.''
Since McCormick took the helm of Lifetime in February 1993, he has tried to make it a more intimate experience for women. He added movies and specials about eating disorders, sexual harassment and breast cancer, as well as lighter fare such as daily cooking and exercise shows.
``Our mission is to create a community that connects women to each other and just to show women there's a lifetime of opportunity out there for them,'' says McCormick.
Viewership under McCormick's leadership has jumped more than 75 percent and profits have doubled. The New York-based network, owned jointly by Disney and Hearst, is available in more than 65.9 million households nationwide.
McCormick, 47, has been with Lifetime since the switch was flipped in 1984, starting out as an executive in the sales department.
Back then, Lifetime's purpose was a little fuzzy. It was kind of the ``unstated women's network'' as McCormick puts it.
``It didn't really start as television for women,'' he recalls. ``It hadn't found itself. It was basically talk television. I hung in there even though I really hated that.''
After taking over, McCormick scrapped a lot of the talk shows and the medical programs that ran on Sundays and spearheaded an expansion of original programming and public service initiatives targeted to women.
``Once we got to the point where I thought we could call ourselves a network that was television for women, we then went from Lifetime with this logo that looked like some kind of yachting flag or engineering logo to one that simply said `Lifetime: Television for Women.'''
``Having done that it was tremendously freeing because then women saw that they have their own network.''
With that in mind, Lifetime now boasts that about 70 percent of its employees are females.
Next, McCormick wants to raise Lifetime's original programming to 80 percent in five years. It now stands at about 45 percent.
Lifetime is well-known for its reruns of some of network TV's most beloved series, such as ``Sisters,'' ``L.A. Law,'' ``thirtysomething,'' ``Moonlighting,'' ``Designing Women'' and ``The Commish.''
In January, Lifetime will launch ``The Place,'' a two-hour block of programming aimed at young women with four 30-minute shows.
If ``The Place'' is successful, McCormick will launch it as a separate channel in about a year.
This past November, the network was awarded five CableAce Awards, including the Golden CableACE Award, the highest honor in the cable industry, for its extensive breast cancer awareness efforts.
The award was ``a real honor, a real shot in the arm to the men and women who come to Lifetime everyday and really try to create a new paradigm in women's television.''
``We'll do it every year,'' he says of the breast cancer specials. ``This is a promise I have made until we have a cure.''
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) McCormickby CNB