CBS, for years the No. 1 TV network with hits like “The Big Bang Theory,” “Survivor” and the “CSI” franchise, has been one of the best performing businesses in the media industry. Its success has largely been attributed to Mr. Moonves, who has been praised for his uncanny ability to pick shows that become hits with mass audiences. He also moves comfortably among both Wall Street investors and Hollywood producers, speaking as easily about negotiating carriage fees as he does programming for prime-time audiences.
But as technology giants like Netflix, Amazon, Apple and Facebook have pushed into entertainment, media businesses have responded by bulking up through acquisitions. . This year, Ms. Redstone asked the boards of CBS and Viacom to explore the possibility of a merger.
Mr. Moonves and the majority of the CBS board, however, concluded that a combination would not benefit CBS’s shareholders. The company has a far more robust business, while revenues at Viacom, which includes the cable networks Nickelodeon, MTV and Comedy Central, have been shrinking over the last few years.
In May, CBS and Mr. Moonves lost one of the early rounds of the dispute when a judge ruled against CBS’s effort to reduce Ms. Redstone’s influence over the network. She, through her family company, controls nearly 80 percent of the company’s voting rights.
Issues over those rights and the leadership of CBS will be decided in the court case this year. That lawsuit had already put Mr. Moonves’s storied career at stake; if he loses, he may end up leaving the company.
In the #MeToo era, a number of prominent media figures have faced allegations of improper behavior. In November, CBS fired the anchor Charlie Rose after The Washington Post published an article in which multiple women accused him of sexual misconduct. Mr. Rose had been a host of the CBS morning show since 2012. He joined the network’s “60 Minutes II” as a correspondent in 1999. After that show was canceled, he joined “60 Minutes” in 2008. (PBS also cut its longtime ties with Mr. Rose.)
Three of the women who made the accusations against Mr. Rose have since sued him and CBS, saying that they were sexually harassed while working for him and that the network did not do anything to stop it. CBS has said it was not aware of any allegations regarding Mr. Rose’s behavior until The Post published its article.
At the time, Mr. Rose expressed “embarrassment” for pursuing what he believed to be “shared feelings” with women who had accused him.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/business/media/les-moonves-cbs-new-yorker.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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