Cranking up the Disney machine: President Richard Frank hikes Walt Disney Studios' movie, TV output, maps route to superhighway.

When Richard Frank was growing up in Bayside, N.Y., in the 1950s, his family had the lone television set in a group of duplexes. The small television with a grainy picture had a large magnifying glass sitting in front so everyone could see "Zorro" and "American Bandstand" on that small screen.

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Frank, 51, himself casts a large picture in Hollywood. As president of Walt Disney Studios, he is responsible for all production, marketing and distribution of Disney's movies and television shows. The company's collection of movie marketing/production units, Touchstone, Hollywood and Caravan Pictures, all report to him as well as the venerable Walt Disney Pictures. Since joining the Burbank-based entertainment conglomerate in 1985, Frank has been one of the architects of the studio's production explosion. When he joined the studio, Disney was producing just 10 films a year. But this year, 60 films will come out of the pipeline.

Some of Disney's most successful films -- including "Pretty Woman," "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" and "Aladdin" -- have come out of the studio since Frank, Jeffrey Katzenberg (chief executive of Disney Studios and Frank's boss) and Michael Eisner, (chief executive of parent Walt Disney Co.) have been together. Frank admits that last summer's crop was not as strong as in years past, but says he is confident the studio has blockbusters in its upcoming animated films "The Lion King" this summer and "Pocahontas" next year. On the TV side, Disney has become a major force in network programming and now supplies 28 hours of shows, including the sitcoms "Home Improvement," "Empty Nest," "The Sinbad Show" and "Blossom."

During Frank's tenure, The Disney Channel has gone from a start-up to 7 million subscribers, making it the second-largest pay cable channel. Only HBO is larger. He is also responsible for the studio's lone broadcast television station, KCAL-Channel 9, a Los Angeles station that has been battered by the recession and hasn't returned the kind of profits Frank had envisioned when Disney acquired the station in 1988 for $320 million. The station is profitable, Frank said, but the company doesn't release specific breakdowns for its various entities.