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Whether Paley will want to entrust it to John Backe (pronounced Backey) remains to be seen. Backe is also an outsider. The son of an employee of B.F. Goodrich in Akron, he went to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, served in the Air Force, then joined General Electric and studied at Cincinnati's Xavier University for a degree in business administration. In 1966 Backe moved to Silver Burdett, the publishing arm of General Learning Corp., a joint venture of GE and Time Inc. By 1969 he had become president of General Learning, leaving it in 1973 to head up CBS's publishing group,* where he boosted sales from $150 million to $207 million in three years.
"Backe is a bright and capable manager's manager," says a CBS director. Adds a former colleague: "He has an analytical mind. He can be very warm and attractive, but he's tough in business. John also has a quality of dash that goes with his hobby of flying planes." Yet Backe is not well known at Black Rock —his offices were in a publishing house on Madison Avenue—and he will have to learn fast about the rest of the company, particularly its broadcasting area. He will get help, of course, from the man who likes being needed—and plans to keep on filling that key role at CBS as long as possible—William S. Paley.
"Three publishing houses—Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Popular Library and W.B. Saunders —and 25 magazines, including Field & Stream, World Tennis and Road & Track. The division also has negotiated to buy Fawcett Publications.