Mouse House Cleans Out Two ABC Execs

Mark Pedowitz, the Big Dealmaker at ABC Entertainment, is keeping that job while assuming McPherson's old job heading Touchstone.

Braun's job has gone away.

The bigger news is that Sweeney, the suit who has been handling Disney's various cable networks -- except the ESPN networks, which are overseen by George Bodenheimer -- has added ABC broadcast network to her portfolio. In addition to her Disney-ABC Television title, she also gets to be co-chair of Disney's Media Network Unit.

Alex Wallau, the Disney suit who had been president of ABC Television Network, overseeing the entertainment, sports and news operations as well as kids programming, daytime programming, finance, research, public relations, network sales, affiliate relations, marketing and broadcast operations and engineering, has undergone an extreme makeover. He is now president of ABC Network Operations and Administration, overseeing ABC News, network ad sales, affiliate relations, broadcast operations and administration and the "integration of ABC Sports with the ABC TV network," whatever that means.

Sweeney's day-to-day responsibility for Disney Channel Worldwide will be handled by Disney Channel President Rich Ross, whose new title is president of Disney Channel Worldwide. Makes sense.

Bodenheimer remains president of ESPN as well as ABC Sports and is now also the other co-chair of Disney's Media Network Unit.

This shuffling of the deck chairs will no doubt be well received by the many people who felt that ABC's corporate structure was too simple and that decisions had been made in too efficient a manner.

The only new name in the lot is that of Paul Lee, the executive who has been overseeing the hottest network on TV these days, BBC America, home of "The Office" and the network that introduced Graham Norton to the States. Lee has chosen to relinquish that job to go run the radar-less ABC Family cable network, which Sweeney says targets 18- to 34-year-olds, and which is interrupted a couple of times a day by Pat Robertson programming. Good luck on that one.

Feeling so much better since Jon Peter Lewis got booted during last week's "American Idol" movie-toons competition for singing Elvis's "Jailhouse Rock." Still a little shaken, however, by the contestants' list of favorite movies: "Sister Act 2"? "Lilo and Stitch"? "Aladdin"? "Finding Nemo"? What are they -- Disney shareholders?

Last night, Barry Manilow Night on "American Idol" featured the actual Barry Manilow, looking -- as have all the oldster songsters who have appeared on this show -- more like he belongs on that other Fox reality series, "The Swan." Ironically, sitting behind Manilow in the audience were the three contestants from "The Swan" who have been voted through to the final create-a-babe beauty pageant.

"Idol" host Ryan Seacrest introduced them to viewers right after Jasmine Trias stormed her way through a Manilow tune -- they all sound alike to me -- and one of the Swans said she hadn't cried that much since her "reveal" on "The Swan." Seacrest said he thought the hair on her arm was standing up with excitement, which was really cruel because she was the chick who had serious hair issues in this week's "Swan" episode; she had to shave her face before her overhaul. But we think Seacrest didn't realize he was hitting a nerve; he has been much nicer on the show recently.

Back to the singing competition. Can we just get rid of the men? The men were awful. Okay, "men" is an overstatement: It's just geeky John Stevens and smiling George Huff, who messed up some Manilow song that isn't too terrible with a lot of riffs and extraneous stuff that even judge Randy Jackson said was bad.

Judge Simon Cowell correctly observed that this edition of "Idol" has become a battle of the divas and that the men could go away. (We think Simon's a genius because he noted this week that he'd finally figured out who Stevens reminds him of: the dead comic Stan Laurel. Which we observed here back in March:

"Seriously. John Stevens, limping through 'My Girl,' has somehow become that dead comic Stan Laurel -- and sings like him, too.")

On the other hand, all three judges -- Randy, Simon and Paula Abdul, who had her arm in a sling and acted as if she were stoned on painkillers -- seemed to have concluded by the end of the night that the younger singers all lack that certain je ne sais quoi needed to become an American Idol. That would eliminate 16-year-olds Stevens and Diana DeGarmo and 17-year-old Jasmine Trias, which is also fine by us.

Jasmine, last night, on working with Manilow: "He is such a genius when it comes to, like, music and everything."