Bonnie Hammer’s Exit Interview: “I Am Terrified”

Bonnie Hammer is still trying to come up with the perfect way to describe what comes next. “I’m trying to think of a term that isn’t as hackneyed as ‘next chapter.’ But ‘the next scene’? ‘The next era’? None of it feels right,” says the veteran executive, who, in a matter of weeks, will wrap up her 50-year career in television, nearly half of which was spent at NBCUniversal.

As Hammer details over a lengthy lunch in mid-November, what she might do with the period is starting to come into focus. The woman once dubbed the “Queen of Cable” is already at work on a female-focused incubator, she reveals, and there may be another book in her, too. But retirement was not something that the now 74-year-old was looking forward to. Instead, she confesses how terrified she is, even with the generous runway she was given, having shifted into a consigliere role as a vice chairman in 2020.

Before that, the married mom spent several decades in cable, vaulting to an unparalleled perch atop six networks, including USA and Bravo. In any given week, more than 100 million viewers would tune in to watch something on one of her channels. Back when THR ranked its list of the entertainment industry’s most powerful women, she was routinely No. 1 or 2. And though her influence has decreased in recent years — as she told me this spring, “No one really above me wants my advice anymore” — she’s remained gainfully employed until now. As her last day looms, Hammer sat for a wide-ranging exit interview.

I heard you say recently that you’re trying to create a new path for how our culture looks at aging women. What does that mean to you?

It’s really interesting for me right now to try to embrace the reality of my numerical age. I almost do a jerk anytime I see the number in print or when someone has the cajones to ask me, “So, how old are you?” The answer is 74, but I don’t feel it. I mean, yeah, I see my wrinkles, I see stuff that’s changed, but it was Barry [Diller] years ago who said I have a steely reserve, and I have that same steely reserve when it comes to fighting the notion of women aging. It’s fine for silver-haired men to still be navigating their way through the corporate world, but where are the women of that age? It’s a real double standard: Men gain wisdom and are seen and embraced when they get silver-ized, and women are pushed away. It’s societal, not just corporate, but it has to change.

What does it look and feel like when you’re in it?

You become invisible. And when I sit down and talk with women, they’re really great conversations where you can address it, but to be honest, there are very few of me around — meaning, women my age who are still working. And when I’m talking to the 50-somethings, there’s no way they can understand it yet because they’re still squarely in the middle of their own climb, and, for good reason, their own import. Now, I will say, I’ve been incredibly lucky. When I think about when my contract, the second time, was supposed to end, it was 2018, and we’re about to get to 2025 and I am still employed for a short while. So, I owe it to NBCU and to Comcast for allowing me a runway that many of my peers never had. And I feel respected and appreciated and lucky, but I shouldn’t have to feel this way. It should be just an assumption. Nobody’s questioning [Bob] Iger’s age or the idea that he would be pushed out. He left by choice when he did, and now he’s here again for another couple of years.

And your point is that his age isn’t part of the story?

Correct. It’s never part of the story. Granted, he’s maintained a beautiful image, but so do women. So, it is not a great feeling. And in everyday life, I wander around and every now and then, I realize my age and it makes me crazy because I can’t get my arms around it. I cannot accept the number.

I’ve been interviewing you for decades now, and it’s far more compelling to do so during this chapter than it was when you were still climbing, or even at the top …

Because I had to be careful about what I said then!

Sure, but it’s such a shame that this period, where you feel you have wisdom and clarity and can finally be vulnerable, is also when you feel you’re least embraced.

Yes, and I really don’t understand it. You’re at this point where you have no agenda, so there’s a purity to what you have to say. And it’s a time that in other cultures, like certain Asian cultures, where you’re embraced for that wisdom and clarity that comes with age and experience. Ours does not do that. It’s a youth culture; it embraces and thinks anything that comes out of a 20- or 30-something’s mouth, computer, whatever, is genius.

What’s the advice you give other women on this subject of aging?

I keep telling women in their 50s — because those are the ones I mostly mentor — something that I wish I had done a bit more of. I say this is their decade, do not waste 50 to 60. Everybody thinks they have this enormous runway ahead, so they may stay at jobs they feel slightly stuck at or they’re afraid to zigzag or they’re comfortable with the status quo as long as they get the little bit of an increase, a bonus, whatever, when this is the time that they have to rethink what the next chapter is. Because once you get into your 60s, you do not have that freedom. I hear so often from people who crossed the 60 line who are trying to make change, and suddenly there’s a roadblock.

What do you wish you had done more of, as you put it?

More zigzagging on my own. Most of the changes I experienced and was able to embrace were changes that came from the outside — six corporate changes and seven or eight different bosses. And each time I was lucky enough to get something else added and I switched gears, but here’s one I think about. Once GE bought USA and [what was then] Sci-Fi from Barry Diller in 2004, Barry called me and said, “Would you consider running Match.com?” Now, I don’t think he knew I had just signed my contract with Jeff Zucker, but my response to him was, “Barry, I survived you once, do you really think I’d go through that again?” But in hindsight, I should have taken that risk. Granted, [my son] was still young and I didn’t want to pull him out of school, but what would’ve happened? How would my life be different?

That would have been a completely different path, would it not?

Completely. And I’d zigged and zagged within TV; it was a different tent but always the same field. Now I really encourage others to say yes to things that aren’t on that ladder. We’re brought up thinking that you go step to step to step, and as I’ve grown wiser, I’ve realized how limiting that is. It means you get to the top rung and there’s nowhere else to go and you have no other skills if you have no other experience. So, instead of a ladder, think of it as a web — as you’re experiencing new things, you’re broadening it and making it bigger.

Looking back at your career, what are the memorable highs and lows?

A recent high for me was the comeback of Suits. For nine seasons, we rode the high of it as a great show on cable. The fact that it came back as a top 10 global show on Netflix was a “holy shit” moment. And it was validation because that show was such a team effort. When we got the first script from Aaron Korsh, Boston Legal was still on and there were other ones, and we loved Aaron’s writing, but we were like, “We cannot do another legal show. This isn’t going to work. So figure out something else, make it a Wall Street show.” Almost a year later, we get it back, and I remember we all look at each other and go, “What did we do? Who cares about Wall Street?!” So, we went back to him to update the original version, and by the time it was ready, the timing was perfect, and it was perfect for our brand.

It seems we’re once again craving “blue skies,” which was how you described the USA brand back then. How about the lows?

The toughest times were always living through change, and every time we were just on a roll, it seemed the company got sold. So, there was a lot of stress, a lot of craziness, but I always tried to look at it as, “It’s change, I cannot control it, so stop bitching and figure out how do I fit into the new model. Who is this new boss? What are they going to need? How does Zucker’s personality differ from Steve Burke’s, who differs from Barry’s?” It was figuring out what each of my now bosses responded to, and how do I get through to them and then continue and push the positivity down to my team even at my toughest moments. I never wanted them to be depressed or fear change, so I had to monitor my own feelings.

Speaking of change, Comcast just announced it’s spinning off most of your former NBCU cable assets into a stand-alone company. What do you make of it all?

I think Brian [Roberts] and Mike [Cavanagh] were very wise to break off most of the cable entity and eventually try to package it in a different way for what this decade needs. To keep it connected to NBC and Peacock and have the internal conflict of where does content go, and different executives going toe-to-toe fighting for [projects], it’s destructive. Doing what they’re doing, it has a shot.

You still believe that there’s considerable life in those assets?

I do. Cable’s not making the kind of money it used to make, but it’s still fine. It’s an alternative. It just needs to be in a space where it can be concentrated on. And in this new world, Donna [Langley, who was elevated to chairman of NBCU Entertainment and Studios,] will have an ability to create content with her teams and very clearly see which platform it should be on: Peacock, broadcast or [theatrical]. It’s clean as opposed to USA wanting it, Syfy wanting it, Bravo thinking it needs it, and then decisions not being made because there’s too much internal conflict.

How are you thinking about what’s next for you?

I’m excited on one hand to finally not have to be living on somebody else’s schedule and have the freedom to do what I want, but I’m also terrified.

What are you terrified of?

I can tell you exactly what I’m terrified of. With the exception of a four-, maybe six-month period when I left [the syndicated show] Alive & Well in L.A., which was also during the time I was getting divorced, so it was complicated as hell, I have never not been employed. From 1987 to this very moment, I have had a corporate umbrella over my head taking care of my life. Meaning, if I have a hangnail, IT comes and removes it brilliantly so I never have to get out my own little scissors and cut my cuticle. And I have so much fear of being on my own, technologically. I’ve been a spoiled brat to any need I had: If I didn’t understand something about a retirement plan, I called HR, “Can you please explain this to me?” And I had an assistant who’d put out every fire around me so that I only take the two calls I’d need. Everything in my life, I’ve had a safety net for. And yes, I appreciated it, but did I really appreciate it? To the degree that when you’re finally disconnecting, you look back and go, “For close to 50 years, I have been taken care of.” And it’s not to say I’m not going to find a local person to help me with my IT needs or whatever it is, but it’s different.

Presumably your identity is wrapped up in it, too?

That’s another piece of it, for sure. My identity was connected to a brand and to a place, but the reality is that I was who I was because of the teams I created around me, and I have teams of friends, too. So, for me, now, it’s about transferring that kind of connective tissue to the next chapter in a different way. There are women who I want to do projects with who are in the same place as me for different reasons. One is an incubator to work on ideas for women.

Business ideas?

Business ideas, pro-social ideas, anything that tackles a need or a problem that women have right now. And this gal and I, we’re coming up with crazy ideas, some are literally bonkers, but it’s a way to keep the brain cells going. And if we do come up with something great, we’ll look for women venture capitalists to see if we can make something happen. I want to get back to photography, too. And people keep saying, “Aren’t you going to go into coaching?” I do want to figure out a way beyond the book [she published 15 Lies Women Are Told at Work … And the Truth We Need to Succeed in May] to help mentor women, but not in the way that I see so many former colleagues and women I respect go out and create these, like, “I’m going to go coach.” It just seems overdone. I know people who’ve worked with me and for me will continue to call for advice, but I’m trying to figure out how to do it in a broader way. It could be another book, I don’t know, but figuring that out is essential for me.

Sydney Sweeney recently made headlines when she said, “This entire industry, all people say is, ‘Women empowering other women.’ None of it’s happening. It’s all fake.” Do you agree?

I still think we have a long way to go for other women to genuinely support and help bring up other women. There’s still some wicked internal fear that if they help another woman, really grow them, and there’s a chance to get a gig that that person becomes a competitor, not just someone they can take pride in. For me, one of the hardest parts of walking away is wanting to be sure that there are other women who are as passionate as I’ve been about getting more women in the C suite. I’m hoping Donna will take on some of this, or Dana [Walden].

What had your experience been coming up in this business?

I feel very fortunate, and it goes back to my early days at Good Day in Boston, which was all women. Everybody was under 30 when we started, and we learned how to do the job together and learned to be protective of one another. These are women that I’m still friends with some 40 years later because we trusted each other and helped put each other in other positions. I think because of that, I just assumed that was the way the world works.

When did you realize it wasn’t?

Oh, many times. But one that reverberated the most for me is when I moved on to Peacock. [Burke briefly tasked Hammer with overseeing the then- forthcoming streaming service in 2019.] We’d had a phenomenal run on cable — the folks on my team, we worked together, some for two decades, many for a decade — and when everything was being restructured, I’d heard they wanted to break up the “Hammer cult.” They thought the cable group was a cult because we worked together and hung out together and were just a very tight team. Everybody knew that if any one of my people ratted on another one, they were dead. But when I heard the “Hammer cult,” I said, “You’re just off by three letters. What we had is not a cult, it’s a culture, and that’s why we succeeded for two decades.”

Your teams have historically skewed female, and you’ve made a point to say you’re a big believer that being female is a good thing.

Yes, because women too often see what are biological traits as weaknesses as opposed to strengths. They’ve been brought up to think that caregiving and connecting to people emotionally and being vulnerable and embracing somebody else who’s being vulnerable means you’re not as strong or not as smart, and that’s pure bullshit. Even today, women are so fearful to say things like, “My kid has a game, I’m leaving.” So what do they do? They’ll B.S. and say, “Oh, I have a meeting outside, so I have to go and do whatever. I’ll be back to you later.” Instead of owning it and having the freedom to say, “You know, it’s my kid’s game, if you need me, text me, I’ll be more than happy to walk away from the field and take the call, but I’m going to my kid’s game.” We need to be more honest and open about that stuff to allow other women the freedom to know that that’s not only OK, it’s healthy.

A few years into the Time’s Up movement, you said to me, “There needed to be a time of noise and pounding on the table to be heard, but now we need to teach [women] how to use their voice in a way that’s productive.” How do you think we’re doing today?

I’m sure I said that, but I actually don’t believe that doing anything with an angry vehemence gets us anywhere. All it does is create resistance. I’ve always believed that to get what you want, you don’t have to sugarcoat it, but present it in a way that people aren’t threatened by it, so that they can hear what you’re asking. I think that’s been a piece of my secret sauce, the reason I’m still standing at 74. I rarely did anything out of anger. I figured out how to be heard in a way that makes people want to give me something. And even when I didn’t get exactly what I wanted; the way that I got something else was because of the tone in which I asked. And that [lesson] goes back to Barry, who needed to be pushed back on. I’d also just add that because I worked for Barry at a relatively young age, I never felt I was singled out, negatively or positively, for being a woman. With him, you either have a good idea or stupid idea, nothing in between, and that allowed me to move forward in this industry in a very different way.

Is Hollywood still fun to you?

Hollywood or the entertainment industry? Because they’re very different things. I guess I feel like I’ve been there, I’ve done it. I still feel a little tingle when there’s an idea or something that I’d love to see on, and I think that’ll always be a part of my thought process and a passion. But I don’t think I’m going to do what others have tried to do, most without success, and say I’m going to go produce and develop ideas once I leave the umbrella of NBCU. I had the best of the world when I was here, and I don’t want to tarnish it by trying something on my own.

The industry has changed pretty dramatically in your time, too.

When I started, up until relatively recently, the studios were run by people who were passionate about content. The biggest difference now is there’s more of a passion about money and saving money and the industry being run by a bottom line.

Will the pendulum swing back?

If I had the answer to that, I don’t know where I’d be working, but surely I wouldn’t be retiring.

This is your exit interview. Anything else you’d like to say?

It’s very hard to think of this article, this conversation, as the end. Again, I’m having trouble with the right word, but I’m hoping I look at this as a new beginning, a fresh start to try something new. And I want to close this one by saying this is a happy ending. I’ve had an amazing run and I’m super close with so many people who I’ve worked with for decades and who basically are responsible for my success. We did it together. So, I’m not walking away with the what if, if only, oh shit, I got pushed out. Instead, I’m walking away feeling fulfilled. Now it’s about figuring out a way to take all of that and pay it forward.

This story appeared in the Dec. 4 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.