Shares in CBS take a pounding
Network stock drops 4 percent after axing CEO
NEW YORK — Sizing up a future of a network without its kingmaker, Wall Street sent shares of CBS down sharply yesterday, the first day of trading since the departure of Les Moonves.
CBS said late Sunday, as more allegations of sexual abuse surfaced, that Moonves would be replaced and that the company was shaking up its board of directors.
Shares are down more than 8 percent this year, and suffered their biggest downturn in nearly 7 years in July when details of the accusations surfaced.
The stock tumbled close to 4 percent yesterday.
The #MeToo movement fighting sexual misconduct had already claimed one of Hollywood’s top movie moguls in Harvey Weinstein. Now it has done the same for Moonves, one of the television industry’s most powerful executives.
CBS, just hours after The New Yorker magazine posted a story Sunday with a second round of ugly accusations against Moonves, said that the company’s chairman would step down. A total of 12 women have alleged mistreatment, including forced oral sex, groping and retaliation if they resisted him. Moonves denied the charges in a pair of statements, although he said he had consensual relations with three of the women.
CBS said $20 million will be donated to one or more organizations that support #MeToo and workplace equality for women. That sum will be deducted from any severance due Moonves, a figure that won’t be determined until an outside investigation, led by a pair of high-profile law firms, is completed.
The network’s chief operating officer, Joseph Ianniello, is taking over as president and CEO until the reshaped board of directors can find a permanent replacement, CBS said.
It has been nearly a year since Pulitzer Prize-winning articles by The New York Times and the New Yorker exposed a pattern of misconduct by Weinstein, who now faces sex crime charges in New York. Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose and Kevin Spacey are among other figures that lost jobs after men and women came forward with their own stories, often on social media with the hashtag MeToo, about sexually inappropriate behavior by powerful men.
Moonves ruled first the programming, then the full network and other corporate entities such as Showtime for two decades. CBS has consistently been the most-watched network on television, even as changes transformed the industry, first with cable networks investing in shows and then streaming services like Netflix. He’s been paid handsomely for his success, earning just under $70 million in both 2017 and 2016.