Media Curmudgeon

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April 22, 2007

Les Moonves Is Over His Head

Les Moonves revived a ratings sickly CBS by adding popular programs and dropping bad ones for the network when he was president of its entertainment division. He has not been as successful at hiring and firing people as CBS’s CEO.

Many management experts believe the most important task of a CEO is “getting the right people on the bus” and the wrong people off the bus, according to Jim Collins author of the best-selling management book Good to Great. Moonves has failed using these criteria. He made a cynical show-business decision to hire Katie Couric as the anchor of the “CBS Evening News.” It wasn’t a news decision—she wasn’t hired because she was the best possible, experienced news anchor, but because she was the cutest news anchor. Not only has Couric not increased the ratings of the “Evening News,” the ratings have slipped since she has taken over from two old men--Bob Schieffer and, before that, Dan Rather, both experienced news anchors.

Moonves hired Couric because he probably thought, being the first female sole anchor, she’d be unique and draw female younger viewers. He must have figured her perky approach would make the news more entertaining and more watchable. However, Couric has not caught America’s fancy and has been panned by critics for being too cloying and inauthentic.

Moonves did the right thing in firing Don Imus, it just took him too long and it looked as though he did it only because of pressure from Al Sharpton, NBC, and his boss, Sumner Redstone. CBS’s press release sounded high-minded, but it came out too late to change the perception that Moonves made the decision under pressure and only after NBC fired Imus. The morning before the firing announcement, CBS Chairman Sumner Redstone was widely quoted as saying that he knew Moonves would “do the right thing.” Redstone, who is exceptionally smart and wily, would not have said that unless he was concerned that Moonves might not fire Imus and, thus, and felt he had to give Les a not-too-subtle message.

By making the Imus firing announcement after a press conference in which Al Sharpton demanded Imus’s ouster and threatened a boycott of advertisers, CBS and Moonves enabled the bloviating Sharpton and made it appear they were caving in to him. CBS will regret this timing mistake—they encouraged Sharpton and his older pal Jesse Jackson to escalate their demands next time something comes up these two camera hogs don’t like.

Moonves may be able to pick prime time programs, but he might find himself doing it again somewhere else and not running Sumner Redstone’s company, because Redstone doesn’t allow his CEOs much rope. Ask Mel Karmazin and Tom Freston.

Posted by Charles Warner at April 22, 2007 11:19 PM

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KMashek at April 23, 2007 10:53 AM writes:

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