Word: tisch
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Laurence Alan Tisch has never been one to run with any pack. At the age of 15, while his cronies were playing stickball in Manhattan playgrounds, Tisch was a student at New York University. At Harvard Law School in 1946, he seemed to have a bright future, but then he dropped out. Some 40 years later, having become a tycoon while keeping a low profile, Tisch, 63, has suddenly thrust himself into an unfamiliar spotlight at the helm of CBS, one of America's best-known corporations...
Speculation over what Tisch might do if he were at the helm of CBS is swirling around the broadcast community. First to go, some contend, would be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Wyman, brought in from Pillsbury in 1980 as CBS Founder William S. Paley's hand-picked successor. (Indeed, Wyman and other top executives are guaranteed lucrative severance packages if any single interest acquires more than 25% of CBS's voting stock.) Close behind, say insiders, could be Van Gordon Sauter, the president of CBS News, whom many have blamed for the stumbling performance of the Morning News...
...Kansas, and there seem to be a whole lot of tornadoes directly overhead," Wyman good-naturedly told TIME last week, "along with some that never took place." Wyman denied he is leaving CBS and pointed out that Tisch is still within his agreed-upon limit of 25% of CBS stock. Any effort by Tisch to acquire more shares, Wyman said, would be strongly resisted. Such a move "would represent a broken agreement, and everyone should expect that that condition would be the basis for considering alternatives to protect the independence of the company...
...Although Tisch last year denied that he wanted to run CBS, he has kept his current plans quiet. Most broadcast observers do not expect him to make any sudden moves. But Tisch is not the sort of executive to sit idly by as CBS flounders. "Historically, when he makes a commitment, he wants to make his commitment work out," says John Reidy, media analyst for Drexel Burnham Lambert. "He wants to get a return on his investment...
...company doesn't talk about is the fact that we've had so few hits in the last few years, or the failed ventures that CBS got itself into. To a great extent, the chickens have come home to roost." Some staff members are actually rooting for a Tisch takeover, on the assumption, in the words of one news producer, that "anything is better than what we've got." Susan Winston compares the atmosphere to the days at ABC before the January takeover by Capital Cities Communications: "I think that the various CBS divisions are trying to position themselves...