Word: biondi
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Corporate tea readers spent much of last week trying to divine what might have soured Redstone on Biondi. Some pointed to the departure of Geraldine Laybourne, the widely respected head of Nickelodeon, who was hired away by Disney last month. Others cited disappointing financial results at Blockbuster; cash flow fell short of projections last year, as the video chain was faced with aggressive discounting by competitors. Early this month several Wall Street analysts lowered their profit estimates for the company...
...Biondi is the latest of several mega-media executives who have recently been toppled, with little or no warning, from major posts. Jeffrey Katzenberg, longtime chairman of Walt Disney Studios, left in 1994 after a falling-out with corporate chairman Michael Eisner. Michael Schulhof, head of Sony Corp.'s U.S. operations, was ousted last month after clashing with his Japanese bosses. Michael Fuchs, the longtime head of HBO and (for six months) chairman of the Warner Music Group, was fired in November by Time Warner chairman Gerald Levin...
...heeled life of these executives is, to some extent, a reflection of the increasing complexity of their jobs. Running a multimedia conglomerate--trying to combat big, aggressive competitors; weathering the relentless scrutiny of the press--has become difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to do well for very long. Biondi seems to have been the victim of another common business syndrome: an entrepreneur-owner's reluctance to hand over control to a successor. Redstone, who built his fortune from a chain of movie theaters, hired Biondi shortly after acquiring Viacom in a leveraged buyout in 1987. A Harvard M.B.A...
...Biondi, determined to avoid a public row with his ex-boss, nonetheless dismisses Redstone's claim that he was tossed overboard primarily because of a stylistic shortcoming. "This aggressive/laid-back stuff is just a joke," he told Time. "We had differences in approach, but that was strength. Sumner just decided he wanted to be totally involved. He's having a lot of fun. He loves the publicity. He wants his day in the sun, and he's going...
...question is whether the sun will continue to shine on Viacom. The company's stock fell 3 5/8 on the day after Biondi's ouster, apparently reflecting Wall Street skepticism about Redstone's ability to run Viacom at his age. (The stock recouped a quarter of that loss the next day, closing the week at 37 7/8.) Redstone's response to the gerontology issue: "If Bob Dole thinks he can run the country at age 72," he told a company director, "then I can run Viacom...