was at the office by 8 AM, excited by the staff ideas and mixing them with his own. At nine he had the staff compiling information that he might need and just before ten a.m. as he and Wella walked into the meeting he felt scared but confident, ready and excited and a little sore.

With the exception of Wella, he was without a doubt a good thirty years younger than everyone else in the room. Wella was the only woman and the only person of color, but not the only assistant. Tolan quickly took charge, introducing Ian to everyone, most of whom he had already met, and first on Tolan’s agenda was Ian. He started out by asking Ian to give his take on the current line up and what he would do to increase market shares and key demographics.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Wella scratch her forehead. He understood the signal. Ian cleared his throat and calmly said, “Thank you sir, but being the new guy here, I would prefer to sit back and learn for right now.”

Tolan nodded his head, but Simon Kent, a rotund man with Truman Capote’s body and Tallulah Bankhead’s voice, spoke up. “Please, Ian, we are all anxious to hear what you initial reaction is. Frankly, we are all on pins and needles waiting to hear.”

Wella’s eyes connected with his and she tapped her pencil on the pad in her lap. Ian thought in his head, “Proceed with caution.”

He stood and buttoned his coat, “If you insist. Let’s just point out the obvious; I am the youngest and most unseasoned here.”

There were a few grunts and a small titter from Kent. “I believe in being straight forward and honest, and in all honestly until I started working here the HTR schedule never interested me at all. Being a member of the most sought after network demographic that is a major concern.”

There were harrumphs and Kent piped up, “So if you were in charge you would just dump the whole schedule.”

“Absolutely not, only cable networks can afford niche programming, as one of the big guns we must appeal to our base and slowly attract other important demographics as well. If we simply up ended the current schedule we would insult over current base with no guarantee of having another stable base.”

Max Logan, one of the board members present, snarled, “And what do you believe is our base audience young man.”

Wella handed him a folder, which Ian opened and referred to, “According to the latest research we appeal to the older market, not a broad base, but the one with the most consistent viewing habits. We cannot lose them, but we must start slowly to build and seed out viewers with contemporary counter programming, cultivating younger viewers and growing them into a consistent audience.”

It was simple, but the other men seemed to approve. He still needed to get them to let down their guard and take him seriously without letting them feel he planned on just remaining silent and go with their flow. “Rather than spouting my own agenda, I simply desire to allow my teams work to speak for us as a whole. Hopefully, in time, you will see that we are striving for quality programming, not event programming, as we feel that quality will get all demographics to sit up and take