In 1987 he was given responsibility for scheduling as well before becoming vice president for prime-time programming a year later. He spent four years as executive vice president of prime-time programming, and in 1993 was named president of ABC Entertainment.
During his rise at ABC, Harbert helped bring on board some of the network's best-loved and top-rated shows, including the acclaimed comedy-drama The Wonder Years as well as Roseanne, Home Improvement , and NYPD Blue . One show that did not last more than 19 episodes, and was greatly lamented by its devoted audience, was My So-Called Life , which debuted in August of 1994 and starred a young Claire Danes and Jared Leto. A few weeks later, it began to get trounced in its time slot by a new NBC sitcom called Friends , and Harbert took much of the heat when the critically acclaimed Life was cancelled. He later said that Danes' representatives had wanted her schedule freed up for movie roles, and other top brass at the network were already uneasy with the edginess of the show and ready to can it.
An executive shuffle took place at ABC in 1996, when Jamie Tarses, a young sitcom development talent, was brought over from NBC. Tarses joined Harbert in heading ABC Entertainment; Harbert served as chair, but Tarses was now president. Her tenure was problematic, however, and she would eventually follow Harbert out the door in 1997. Taking a job as a producer for Dream Works SKG, he was grateful for the change of scenery. "I needed that pace—that life—to change significantly," he told Frank Swertlow in an interview with the Los Angeles Business Journal . "My brain was turning into mush. I loved the shows so much that I read so many scripts and watched so many episodes that my mind was reeling with episodes."
In August of 1999, Harbert was hired as president of NBC Studios, the network's in-house production facility. He oversaw some of NBC's classic shows, including Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno , but also worked to develop new shows, among them Will & Grace and Crossing Jordan . In 2003, he left to become a producer at 20th Century-Fox Television, and moved on to E! Networks in 2004 as chief executive officer. Its E! Entertainment Television channel was one of the cable industry's most impressive success stories, drawing a surprisingly strong number of viewers in the 1990s thanks to a daily broadcast of Howard Stern's radio show, red-carpet awards preview shows hosted by Joan Rivers, and "clip" shows, an industry term for a celebrity profile cobbled together from feature-film and television appearances along with previously aired interviews.
Harbert was tapped to lead E! into a new era: Prior to Harbert coming on board, some of the network's racier new series, such as Celebrities Uncensored , had alienated some in Hollywood for their tabloid-gossip edge. E! also faced competition from the TV Guide Channel, which had began to feature more celebrity-focused original programming and even managed to hire longtime E! fixtures Joan and Melissa Rivers. By early 2006, however, Harbert had made several line-up changes at E!, such as signing American Idol host Ryan Seacrest to anchor a daily newscast focusing on the entertainment business. The channel also had a new hit with a behind-the-scenes look at the Playboy Mansion called The Girls Next Door , and had nabbed The Simple Life reality series from FOX for its fourth season.
Harbert lives in Pacific Palisades, California, with his wife, Susan, and their two children. In his quarter-century in television, he has just one screen credit as an actor, for a 2000 episode of the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm .