As she prepared her daughter for college, Anne Sweeney insisted that a television be among the dorm room accessories. “Mom, you don’t understand. I don’t need it,” her 19-year-old responded, saying she could watch whatever she wanted on her computer, at no charge. That flustered Ms. Sweeney, who happens to be the president of the Disney-ABC Television Group. “You’re going to have a television if I have to nail it to your wall,” she told her daughter, according to comments she made at a Reuters event this week. “You have to have one.” But she does not, actually. For 60...