Report: Merger Talk Unsettling For Les Moonves

Shari Redstone is advocating for new blood on the board of CBS Corp. as she renews her push to merge the company with Viacom Inc., according to The Wall Street Journal citing people familiar with the matter.

CBS is planning to propose replacing several of its board members at its annual meeting in May, and Redstone is already gathering names of possible candidates, people familiar with the matter said.

Shari Redstone

Ms. Redstone, vice chairman of CBS and Viacom, is also dissatisfied with current succession planning at CBS and has suggested there is a general lack of long-range strategic planning at the company, these people said.

Earlier this month, Redstone reached out to CBS Chief Executive Leslie Moonves to jump-start talks about merging CBS and Viacom—potentially as soon as this quarter, the people said.

Moonves has resisted the idea in the past and still has concerns, people familiar with the matter said.

Redstone and her father, Sumner Redstone, the 94-year-old media mogul, control CBS and Viacom, with a roughly 80% voting stake in each, through their National Amusements Inc. holding company.

She reluctantly pulled the plug on an earlier exploration of a CBS-Viacom combination in late 2016, but she has never stopped believing that the deal made sense, the people said. CBS and Viacom had been part of the same company until Mr. Redstone split them in 2006.

Redstone saw the recent wave of consolidation in the media industry—particularly 21st Century Fox ’s agreement to sell most of its assets to Walt Disney Co. —as a clear sign that bulking up is more urgent than ever, the people said.