Sumner Redstone steps down as CBS executive chairman
In this Oct. 3, 2011 file photo, Sumner Redstone arrive at the premiere of “Footloose” in Los Angeles. CBS says media mogul Redstone has resigned as chair of the company’s board, replaced by the company’s CEO, Leslie Moonves. The company says Redstone’s resignation took effect Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016, and he now serves as chairman emeritus. AP File Photo
SAN FRANCISCO, United States—Sumner Redstone, the 92-year-old US tycoon, is stepping down as executive chairman of television and media giant CBS, the company said Wednesday.
Ending the long-running uncertainty over his succession plan, CBS said Leslie Moonves was elected chairman and will keep the titles of president and chief executive.
Redstone’s resignation was effective on Tuesday, CBS said in a statement, and he will hold the title of chairman emeritus.
His fragile health and uncertainty about who would take over from him had caused shareholder anxiety at CBS and Viacom, the other media giant where he holds the role of chairman.
Redstone’s daughter Shari will continue to serve as vice chair of the CBS board, a position she has held since 2005.
Shari Redstone said that even though her father’s trust calls for her to succeed him as non-executive chairman, she chose to nominate Moonves.
“It is my firm belief that whoever may succeed my father as chair at each company should be someone who is not a trustee of my father’s trust or otherwise intertwined in Redstone family matters, but rather a leader with an independent voice,” she said.
Both companies—in which Redstone and his family hold controlling stakes—are facing threats from the shift of viewers to Internet-based on-demand services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu.
Viacom, which owns Paramount studios in Hollywood, said in a statement its board would meet on Thursday but offered no further details.
Redstone, who is seen little these days outside his Beverly Hills home, has been notably absent from recent shareholder meetings and skipped analyst calls for the two companies.
He has appeared frail in recent years, despite boasts about his workout routines and antioxidant supplements to keep himself healthy.
The question of his health has made it to court and an ex-girlfriend has set in motion a battle over whether Redstone is able to make his own health care decisions.
Manuela Herzer has portrayed the billionaire tycoon in court documents as a “living ghost” obsessed with sex and steak, and out of touch with his surroundings.
Redstone has trouble controlling routine bodily functions and grasping significance of what doctors tell him, Herzer maintained in a legal filing.
She asked last year that the court leave her in charge of Redstone’s health care decisions on the basis that he was not competent enough to sign a directive assigning a new person to the task.
Redstone led a 1987 hostile takeover of Viacom that pushed him into the national spotlight. Viacom in 2000 acquired CBS, but the two firms later split.
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