A Cut Above the Ordinary

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Only three months ago, Laurence Tisch, 63, was being toasted as a hero at the Manhattan headquarters of powerful CBS. The billionaire chairman of Loews had suddenly emerged, to resounding cheers, as the No. 2 network's acting chief executive officer, after a dramatic boardroom confrontation with Ousted Chairman Thomas Wyman, 57. Many CBS employees hoped that the changeover, which also brought back Network Founder William Paley, 85, as acting chairman, would mark the onset of a new golden age for the tradition-minded broadcasting giant and the end of months of upheaval and austerity. CBS, exulted 60 Minutes Correspondent Morley Safer, was on its way "back to the future."

These days CBS's future seems to have arrived, and the huzzahs are rare in the company's corridors. Instead, there is much muttering and trembling, as the tightfisted Tisch continues to direct a rapid and ruthless austerity campaign that has so far cost 1,200 of CBS's 15,500 employees their jobs. Tisch has also lopped off entire lines of the sprawling conglomerate's business (1985 revenues: $4.8 billion), and is said to be looking for buyers who will take on others. Meanwhile, speculation is increasing that the next item to get the ax may be the "acting" portion of Tisch's CEO title. As Tisch himself has put it, "I've been bitten by CBS. It's got great potential."

The increasing dominance of CBS's largest stockholder (he controls 24.9% of the outstanding shares) was underlined once again last week. As Tisch and Paley emerged from a three-hour regular monthly session of the 14-member CBS board, word spread that directors had once again avoided choosing a Wyman successor. A seven-member search committee, headed by former Defense Secretary Harold Brown, has met three times so far but has set no deadline for its task. The main reason for the committee's lassitude is that Tisch is not yet finished with his task of reorganizing the company.

There is considerable irony in Tisch's campaign. Cost-conscious bloodletting, in a bid to fend off corporate raiders who were swarming around the company, had stirred widespread unhappiness with Wyman and helped to bring Tisch to power in the first place. But the chops did not stop with Wyman's departure. Far from it. It was easy enough to explain a wave of 700 firings that had begun in July as the result of an austerity plan approved before the outgoing chairman's downfall. But then in October came 400 more, decreed by Tisch, followed by an additional 100 in November. The firings have hit every level, but the highest-ranking casualties of all came early in Tisch's reign with the September removal of CBS Publishing President Peter Derow and 14 of his assistants. As a CBS News employee with 14 years' experience puts it, the feeling is that "we're all vulnerable."

The September mood of euphoria at CBS suffered accordingly. Says one mid- level executive: "Half the people here curse Tisch." A television producer at the Manhattan headquarters known as Black Rock described employee morale as "pulverized with fear." Staffers soon coined a bitter name for the layoffs: to be fired was to be "tisched." In the past few weeks, as the wave of firings seems to have again subsided -- at least for a time -- the mood at CBS has become quietly resigned. Says one employee: "The feeling here is follow the rules, do your job, don't make waves."