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Ax Man. Stanton should know. The first of Paley's presumed corporate heirs, he joined CBS in 1935, became president in 1946, and always expected to take over when the chairman reached retirement age of 65. But when that date finally arrived in 1966, Paley announced that he would not step down after all; it was Stanton who retired at 65. His successor was Charles T. Ireland, a financial expert hired away from International Telephone & Telegraph in 1971 to guide an ambitious acquisitions program. When Ireland died of a heart attack the next year, another outsider with financial savvy was brought in: Arthur Taylor, then a 37-year-old whiz kid from International Paper Co.
Taylor once remarked that "people either like me or they don't." Many did not. Wielding a corporate ax as probably only an outsider could, he consolidated some unprofitable operations, sold off others (including the then losing New York Yankees), and imposed rigid cost controls, all of which trimmed a case of middle-age corporate spread at CBS and led the company to 17 straight quarters of high profit. But some executives bridled at what they considered Taylor's arrogance, which apparently grew as quickly as the company's earnings. It is said that Taylor once stormed up to a man using a telephone booth in Washington and shouted at him to get out, announcing, "I am president of CBS!"
Taylor's hard-nosed style did not go over well with the people making TV films, either. Says a Hollywood executive: "Producers and stars are generally individualistic. They don't respond well to corporate thinking. Taylor wasn't easy with the people out here." Taylor also irked newsmen by lecturing them on freedom of the press. When his managers objected to his attempts to be what one calls "a conscience of the industry," he overrode them.
Paley had more tangible reasons to be upset. This year CBS is having trouble coming up with big new TV shows. For the first time since the 1950s, the company is behind ABC and NBC in the audience ratings. Since programming is not a direct responsibility of CBS's president, Taylor might seem to be free of responsibility for the plunge in ratings or the consequent six-point drop in CBS stock since the new TV season began last month. But Paley, some insiders believe, blamed Taylor. He invented the industry's new "family viewing hour"—the sanitized period between 8 and 9 p.m. in which programming is supposed to be free of sex and violence. To meet family-hour standards, CBS had to move popular shows like All in the Family into later time slots, where their ratings dropped; some newer shows (Doc, Switch, Spencer's Pilots) are mired in the bottom 50.
King's Wrath. Another apparent irritant to Paley came in 1973 when Taylor hired an International Paper executive, presumably to fill his shoes when he stepped into Paley's. Says former CBS Programming Chief Michael Dann: "There is no such thing as power politics at CBS. Power rests with the throne and Mr. Paley is the king." Adds Dann: "When the old man gets mad, he gets mad. And when he gets mad, he lets go his wrath." A board member puts it another way: "CBS is the house that Paley built, and he simply didn't want to leave it in the hands of Arthur Taylor."