As if CBS chief Les Moonves didn’t have enough to worry about getting his businesses humming again, he now has to contend with Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman conspiring to remove him.
On Sunday, Dauman killed Paramount Pictures’ deal with CBS’ pay-TV channel Showtime in order to start a rival cable network with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Lionsgate. According to multiple sources close to or inside Viacom and CBS, Dauman’s decision was fueled by Moonves’ refusal to sweeten a lowball offer on a renewal pact to run Paramount-produced films on Showtime.
“There’s a lot of tension between those two, and this is Philippe putting the screws to Les at the worst possible time,” said one source.
Indeed, people familiar with the matter said Sumner Redstone, who serves as chairman of both Viacom and CBS, has privately expressed frustration to Dauman at CBS’ sagging stock price, the continuing negative press related to CBS’ radio division, a dearth of recent primetime TV hits, and, of course, the fate of evening news host Katie Couric.
These same sources also paint Dauman as an ambitious executive who is one of several candidates, if not the leading one, to succeed the octogenarian Redstone.
Because of that clout, sources said Dauman’s ultimate goal, which factored into the Paramount-Showtime negotiations, is to continue driving CBS’ stock price down to the point where Redstone can justify booting Moonves, much as he did with former Viacom CEO Tom Freston in 2006.
“Dauman’s dream is to get rid of Moonves and put Viacom and CBS back together again,” said one source who has worked with both execs.
Another source with close ties to Dauman said, “Les is very afraid that Philippe will end up being his boss someday soon.”
“Mr. Dauman is 100 percent focused on running Viacom,” a company spokesman said in a statement to The Post. “The creation of the [Paramount-MGM-Lionsgate] joint venture had everything to do with a very compelling strategic and economic opportunity and absolutely nothing to do with personal issues or rivalries that just don’t exist.”
However, given the stock price performances of both companies, the strategic and economic opportunity is hard to see. Viacom’s stock is down 9.4 percent year-to-date, while CBS’ is off 19 percent. The stocks of both companies are below where they stood when they first began trading as separate companies on Jan. 1, 2006.
Though the boards of both Viacom and CBS voted unanimously to split, sources said Dauman was privately against the idea. And while Dauman is in no rush to oversee a declining radio and broadcast television business, sources said he is interested in becoming the boss at CBS if only to put himself in a position to control or at least influence the unit’s ultimate fate.
“This is all about Philippe kicking Les while he’s down,” said one of the sources.