Network TV Ownership

CBS--At A Glance

Source: All descriptions taken from The CBS Corporation Web site * Data from Broadcasting & Cable, Annual Ranking of broadcasting and cable networks

At the end of 2005, Viacom announced that it would divide its vast cross-media holdings into CBS Corporation and what was being called the new Viacom. CBS Television would join UPN,9 Viacom Outdoor, Viacom Television Stations Group, Paramount Television, King World, Simon & Schuster, Showtime, Paramount Parks and Infinity under the banner of CBS Corporation. The other company, which would operate under the Viacom name, would include the MTV networks and their associated stations (VHI, Nickelodeon, Spike, TV Land), BET, Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Entertainment and Famous Music. Les Moonves would become CEO of CBS Corporation while Tom Freston would assume the CEO position at the new Viacom. Going into the split Viacom revenues had climbed 10%, led by its cable holdings.10 When the new companies launched on January 1, 2006 , the stock market reacted favorably, with CBS stock closing at $26.20 a share, 70 cents higher than it opened.11

CBS has benefited from some solid entertainment programming, starting with its “CSI” franchise. A review of the top 25 programs (based on end of 2004-2005 season ratings), indeed, reveals CBS the leader with 12 programs making the list. They included “60 Minutes,” which, while falling in the ratings, continued to place high in weekly Nielsen rankings. CBS news programming as a whole, however, continued to fall behind. Both the evening news and the “Early Show” continued to occupy third place among the three broadcast networks.

For CBS News, one crucial change heading into 2006 was the arrival of Sean McManus, president of CBS Sports and son of the famed sportscaster Jim McKay, to head the news division as well. McManus is now in charge of the same divisions, news and sports, that Roone Arledge used to build his empire, turning ABC News into the dominant network news operation of the 1990s. While McManus brings a strong track record with him to the job, he has no prior hard-news experience, and the network news business itself is more complicated, though arguably less influential, than when Arledge took over ABC. But like Arledge, McManus also has a news division that is in third place in many key programming slots and a mandate as a consequence to take risks and make big changes. Leslie Moonves, chairman of CBS, was quoted in an October 27, 2005, Baltimore Sun article as saying, “I’ve seen him take CBS Sports from an also-ran to what I consider the pre-eminent network in sports… He’s a great leader. He’s very smart… He’s a perfectionist when it comes to production. And I think these skills will translate when he heads news.”12

What difference does the splitting of Viacom make in all this? It makes the network a more important part of its parent company financially and operationally than either of its broadcast network counterparts are to their corporate parent. The new company is also headed by Moonves, a man who, as he told Washington Post, considers himself “…still a network broadcaster at heart.”13 On the other hand, wary traditionalists also point out that if the future of network news rests online and not over the airwaves, CBS will now be led in that transition by an entertainment broadcaster and a sports broadcaster.