CBS Employees Voice Concerns About Strategy

According to The Hollywood Reporter, simmering tensions boiled over during a "live blog event" on Tuesday afternoon that gave CBS employees the opportunity to ask tough questions of corporate executives like interim CEO Joe Ianniello and chief people officer Laurie Rosenfield, who had billed the event as "part of our ongoing organization-wide dialogue about CBS’ workplace culture."

"CBS News has been under siege by scandal for more than a year," one employee said in the employee forum, as conveyed to THR. "Almost as maddening as the relentless embarrassing headlines has been the lack of transparency from management. ... What lessons has CBS management learned over the last year about the need for corporate transparency and accountability to employees?"

The board of directors of CBS announced on Dec. 17 that an outside investigation concluded that former CEO Leslie Moonves could be terminated "for cause" and should not receive a $120 million severance payment. On Tuesday, an employee asked Ianniello how that $120 million would now be spent.

"Our priority is to continue to invest billions of dollars into the company in the form of our people and content," the exec responded. "That's the priority today and moving forward. Separate from that, there is an ongoing legal process regarding the $120 million that is yet to be determined."

Some of the toughest questions in the digital forum went unanswered, though Ianniello and others responded to some thorny inquiries.

The board of directors has not publicly released the results of the investigation, leading one CBS employee to ask: "Is the board considering releasing the full findings, or at least more detail about what investigators found, to either employees or the public?"

Ianniello addressed several business strategy questions, and conveyed to employees that the company is headed in the right direction and has a strategy in place, whether that includes mergers and acquisitions or not.

Another employee asked if CBS needs to "merge or acquire another media company in the next five years" to remain viable in the industry. "Today, CBS is well-positioned as a premium global content company," Ianniello said. "With any M&A prospectively, I expect to build on that foundation. We have a team of people out there with their ear to the ground looking for any and all opportunities."