showed the inner workings of the TV industry, centering on brash female programming executive Ellen Cunningham (Pamela Bellwood) at fictional network Trans-American Broadcasting (TAB).
However, new NBC boss Fred Silverman's decision to scrap the proposed hour-long sitcom Coastocoast, originally announced for the Thursday 10pm slot, caused the network to move W.E.B.
The show, the sixth lowest-rated network program of the entire 1978–79 season (10.1 rating, 18 share), was replaced with the police drama David Cassidy: Man Under Cover.
Dunaway's role in the film (ratings-mad TV exec Diana Christensen) was said to have been based on NBC's former daytime programming chief Lin Bolen—who produced W.E.B.
He described Ellen Cunningham by comparing her to the protagonist in Way Down East, saying that she was "perhaps the most put-upon and abused heroine since Lillian Gish carried a silent-movie baby across the ice floes with the hound dogs yappin' at her heels."