Rebecca Cabage/UCLA Magazine
Channing Dungey is the new head of entertainment at ABC.
To Channing Dungey, running a television network isn't just a job — it's more like a calling. A self-described TV junkie, Dungey, a 1991 alumna of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, has helped bring addictive hits like"Scandal," "Quantico" and "American Crime" to the small screen. As the new president of ABC Entertainment and the first African-American woman to hold that post at any of the Big Four networks, Dungey aims to pull ABC out of its fourth-place doldrums with an upcoming remake of the classic coming-of-age flick "Dirty Dancing," reimagined as a three-hour musical; Kiefer Sutherland's conspiracy thriller "Designated Survivor," an early hit with more than 15 million cumulative viewers; and the civil rights series "When We Rise." A top priority is continuing to diversify the schedule — one of her first full-season orders was for the new family comedy "Speechless," which features an actor with cerebral palsy playing a character with that disability. Did you consider at the time that your appointment in February 2016 would make C-suite history? I don't think I even fully processed it in that way, judging by the fact that I wasn't expecting it to be news to the degree that it was news. Now I can reflect, and it makes me happy because I didn't have that many role models growing up who looked like me. There were very few in movies or TV or music or government. And now my 3-year-old daughter has examples like Beyoncé and Oprah and Shonda. If I'm lucky enough to have people looking up to me, to have broken some ground, that's incredible. You gave your first commencement speech to your alma mater, the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, in June. What was that like for you, and what was your advice to the grads?
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